Shattered Memories
by Animasta
Summary: She may be stuck in a ghostly empty version of London. Her baby sister may be growing older right before her eyes. She may be stuck following a witch as beautiful as she is suspicious. There may even be danger on the other side of the Themes. But she is Bellatrix Black! She will not let anything stop her! Not... anything...
1. Confringo

Hello! This is my first time posting here, though I've been posting stuff on AO3 for a year under the name TopicalAmazon. Anyway, this is a plot bunny that popped into my brain and wouldn't let go until I finished it. I originally conceived it as a one shot, but 23k words later and here we are!

* * *

 ***BOOM***

The ceiling is crumbling. Slowly, yes, but it's been getting more and more beat up over time. I only woke up an hour ago, and it was only that constant blasting that woke me up. I've been frozen. Not necessarily in fear, but in disbelief… I've studied the room, of course, and the ceiling. I've come to the conclusion that, wherever I am, this building is populated by muggles.

It's easy enough to tell, if you've spent enough time in medical offices. This is clearly a room meant for a… doctor, I believe they're called. A muggle healer. Some parts of it are the same, such as the table they make you sit on, but other parts are clearly suspect. The lack of quills. Instead of quills, they use those pens that muggleborns always insist are better than quills… and honestly? I can't really disagree with that. Plus the various signs, which don't mention things like _"six common ways for diagnosing a malady"_ or _"muggles: what you can catch from them and what you can't"_. Actually, considering the colorful nature of them, as well as the complete lack of interesting language, makes me think this place is for children.

Children, muggles… in reality, there's a much more important thing I should be thinking about. I have no idea where I am. Absolutely zero idea. Last I remember, it was late June. My father informed me that we were having a very important guest over, and that we should look our best. I figured it was just something to do with my… betrothal, or Cissy's betrothal, or some sort of work coll… haha, I can't even imagine my father working at a job. He's too busy being of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black to actually WORK. I was looking for an outfit that was just on the cusp of presentable, and then… nothing. I must've been Stunned, or at the very least Obliviated...

If that was true, it probably wasn't for very long. I'm still in the same dress that I collapsed in, and it doesn't really have any stains, or marks, or other signifiers other than the trace amounts of debris that fell while I was sleeping. I must've been obliviated, because considering my skill, I have a hard time believing someone caught me un-

 ***BOOM***

Shite. This is no time for speculating, I have to escape. No matter how sturdy this building is, at some point it will fall. With this strange, curious blasting going on somewhere. I haven't the faintest idea where it's coming from, because this room has no windows. I believe it's underground, somewhere. Especially considering the staircase, which looks sturdy enough… I've just been too cautious to ascend and have it possibly come down on me, or collapse beneath my feet. Breathing in, I step forward onto the staircase.

Climbing the stairs, clutching the railing just in case… I move slowly, patiently up the narrow staircase. Though the stairs are notably free of debris, that doesn't mean it'll stay that way. Once I get up one set of stairs I speed up a little, knowing that a bomb (or whatever that weird blasting is) may come at any time… It's actually three sets of stairs before I see a door that seems to lead outside. Looking outside, it's… familiar, almost.

Wait, is this LONDON? Was there some sort of war going on, without my knowledge? I do not pay attention to the muggles and their goings on, usually, but I have a hard time considering I would miss a bloody war. I pride myself on knowledge, after all! Still, I can clearly see familiar sights. There's one of those odd, double-decker buses just outside. It's empty, and very very close to another car, but this must be London. These sights just seem so familiar...

*BOOM*

Wait. The explosion sound seemed quieter, almost… was the other side of the building being bombed? That seemed a little unrealistic, that I'd just pick the right street. Or was the building itself getting shelled? Either way, it was likely safe to leave. From this side, at least. Gingerly opening the door, I reach for my… wand…

Where is my wand!? I was mildly worried before, but now… I have no recourse against anyone I might run into! Much as I pride myself on my magic, I've hardly trained with wandless magic. I couldn't see anyone outside, but there must be someone in the city, and if they have a wand… Or they're a muggle… I might be in real danger. Plus, this was London, after all. Most populated area of the country, so there must be SOMEONE here. Wait, this is London... could I get to Diagon Alley? Get a replacement wand for the time being?

Still, without my wand, I need to be very careful. Jumping outside of the door frame, I let the iron door shut itself while I hide behind the outer doorway, looking up and down the street for people. Oddly, there was no one, but if there was bombings in the area everyone might've evacuated, or hide in their homes. Scanning again, looking for odd sights… the cars seemed different. The bus was similar enough to the ones I'd seen, and it's not like I was keeping track, but the cars were definitely different. A lot of oddly shaped… vans, I think. Though definitely modeled different, and the plates on the cars…

I only remember this because Andi asked me what the license plates signified, as her desire for information about anything Muggle lead her to ask many questions… I think it was to impress her secret boyfriend. Of course, I had no idea, so I decided to ask that horrid hag, Umbridge. No one liked her, really, but she was often the only one who knew anything about muggles in Slytherin, as her father, who was an art dealer, dealt in the muggle world often. So she was mildly popular, despite her general unpleasantness. She told me the letter on the right of the plates signified what year it was that those plates were made. A for 63', B for 64'...

So why were those letters on the left!?

Looking at the bus I was now hiding behind, I saw it started with W… and the cars I could see, they all had various letters in front as well. Nothing earlier than R, though. Shite, did that mean anything? I definitely remember her saying they were on the back, and after Andi asked me and I told her what Umbridge had said, I definitely noticed them from time to time, despite my general uninterest. My own memories told me they were on the right, and I'd noticed them enough times to trust in my memories. It's easy to Obliviate ONE memory, but not several.

I'm not sure if she was right. Umbridge had a habit of lying to make herself seem more knowledgeable than she truly was. If she was, then… there was a certain problem.

Because I can do the math.

No. Best not to think about it. That wasn't important right now. The most important thing, right now, would be to find out where I am. Which… how I am supposed to figure that out? It's not like there were maps around town that pointed out where you were in terms of the city layout. That'd be ridiculous. No, I would need to find something worthy of noting on a map, and then find one. definitely not the building I was just in; it was 2 stories above ground, and looked dour. There were plenty of important buildings in London, after all, many of them worthy to be put on… a map...

Wait, was the bombing done? I had noticed some odd irregularities about the situation. The bombing seemed to be on a timer, almost. Every two minutes or so, I'd hear a shaking of the ceiling, but I hadn't heard a single one since I went outside. Did that signify anything? Was it because the bombers had seen me leave the building? If so, what did that even MEAN?

I'd better make my way through to the other side to see the effects of the bombing, if it was truly done. So I slip back into the building I woke up in, passing by some sort of lobby to what seemed like the front entrance, through a very odd pair of doors that just opened as I got close, and… what? What the...

The other street looked perfectly fine! A bunch of cars parked oddly, most of them waiting for a street light that would never change, but nothing out of the ordinary except for the lack of people. Surely, if I felt the bombs three stories down, I would've seen something… and looking at the rest of the building, that looks fine too. Wait… if I head back in...

Looking back at the lobby, that seemed fine too. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was the customary stack of magazines that, strangely, was something very similar to our world. What were the bombs? Were the bombs just noise? No, I felt them. And as soon as I left… they stopped, and they seem to have permanently stopped.

That made me even more worried. Was I being stalked by someone? Not a muggle, like I thought, but a witch or wizard? That bomb blast I kept hearing COULD'VE been a blasting curse; though they usually don't sound like that, I could see someone figuring out how to change the sound of the blast. Though that only brought more questions. I didn't see any muggles outside. I actually didn't see ANYONE outside. Nor were there any in this buildin... well, now that I think about it, I haven't checked yet. There may be people on the upper two floors.

Heading back to the stairwell, I call out loudly, "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

After a brief second, I actually hear someone. Someone I know very well…

"Bella!? It's Cissy! Help!" The familiar whining tone of my sister kicks my legs into overdrive as I take the stairs three at a time, almost tripping on my robes in the process. Cissy was here!?

"Are you on the second or third floor!?" I ask loudly once I get to the second floor, and I hear her voice call out again above me. Third, right. Taking my robes in my hands, I ascend the last of the staircase and I burst through one of the doors, finding Narcissa… looking just as I'd last seen her, but infinitely more worried and confused. I rush over to her, holding out my arms, and she does the same. We embrace, and I feel… relieved, almost. This situation is still extremely worrying, and really, MORE worrying knowing that Narcissa is here, but somehow… it makes me feel a little better.

"Bella. Do you know where we are?" She whispers into my shoulder, fearfully, and I sigh. She really shouldn't be acting like this, she's 14… but it's not like I stepped into action right away, so I can give her some leeway.

"I think we're somewhere in London. I don't know where…" I glance outside the window behind her shoulder, to see if I can see any noticeable buildings from the third floor, but unfortunately it seems to be broken, and a cursory examination of the window reveals that I can't push it up.

"Oh. You don't have a wand either, right?" She asks slowly, and I can tell she's beginning to calm down. I let her go gently and shake my head. She frowns as well, and without a word goes to search a nearby desk. This seems to be a healer's office as well, though it's in pretty rough shape.

"Have you been searching in here already?" I ask, and she nods slightly. Oddly, I want to laugh. She's always been messy, and it's honestly been a secret dream of mine for Kreacher to finally be brave and tell her off for leaving so much stuff everywhere. Not that he would, because he's, you know, a House Elf, but the look on his face while he sees what she's done is pretty hilarious too.

"I haven't found much, just some… vague scribblings. I think they look like notes, but whoever wrote them can't actually write. This thing is pretty odd, though. Right?" She points towards the box with a screen that almost looks like one of those… TV's muggles use. If I knew how to turn it on, it might be useful to us, but alas.

"This whole situation is really odd. I've looked down both streets and I didn't see a single person, muggle or otherwise. I thought, originally, there was a war going on outside, but it was very clear. So I originally thought it was some sort of blasting curse, but… it doesn't really make sense if you haven't seen anyone else either."

"Oh, yeah, that weird boom sound." She nods, "I heard it coming from downstairs."

"Downstairs?" Maybe we should comb through this building thoroughly. If we both woke up here, surely there was something important of this place. Before I could suggest it, however, Narcissa ducks quickly, grabbing the edge of my robes. Backing away slightly, "What do you mean to do, Cissy?"

"Oh, I just wanted to check to see if you had a tattoo." She says, slightly oddly before stands and pulls up her own robe and I see… an odd tattoo. It was black, and very severe. Compared to my sister's usual perfect skin, it was more than a little off putting. Not to mention the content; all it was, was a fraction. 115/120, in roman numerals. I know my sister well enough to know that she would never get a tattoo at all without my parents permission. I also know my parents well enough to know they would never permit her to get a tattoo. Ruin their darling, precious, perfect daughter's perfect skin? Why, how obscene! How… very muggle!

"Check, Bella!" She urges, and I pull up my robe as well. She gasps, and I look down to see it as well. Mine looks very similar to hers, but… the writing is a little smaller. Well, considering what it says, that can't really be helped.

Hard to fit 899995/900000 around my calf muscle… What in Merlin's court is going on...

"Why is your number so much larger?" She asks, examining it thoroughly. She tries scratching it, and I just feel her nail scratch my skin.

"I guess only Merlin knows that one…" I murmur, slightly worried. Shaking it off, "We should check the other floors. I might've missed something."

Well, the second floor was full of nothing in particular. Just piles of boxes. Another sweep through the lobby area on the first floor hit nothing as well, though Narcissa was quite intrigued by the wheelchair that was there. Pulling her away, I tell her to check the first basement floor, while I checked the second. Climbing down the stairs simply, I open the door wide open, assuming there was nothing in there.

"Took you long enough, Bellatrix." A feminine voice grumbles, and I instantly jump back a little. I don't know this…

…

Amazing picture of feminine beauty… Her curly, brown hair is expertly cared for, her brilliant eyes shaped in a suspicious glare. Her gorgeous lips, shaped in a frown that is surely hiding her best qualities… Merlin's beard, how much I want to turn that face smiling. She's not wearing any makeup, but her perfect skin doesn't need any.

And her body… hidden by robes and a long sleeve shirt underneath, but over the years, I've gotten good at determining how delectable my prey is, even under those frumpy robes… She's clearly fit, shaped like a dream...

"Er… Bellatrix?" The beautiful woman asks and I tear my eyes away from her shapely legs, "What… what were you doing?"

"I was… making sure you were… you had… I was checking to see if you had a wand. I'm not carrying one, after all.." I say with false bravado, and I can't help but be proud of my quick thinking.

"You mean the wand I was clearly holding in my right hand?" She waves it around, and… yep. She was already holding a wand. Merlin...

"Er… Well, you know… checking for… a second one?" I say weakly, and she just gives me an odd sort of look. Surprised, and also suspicious.

"Were you… No, that's ridiculous. You wouldn't… would you?" She pinches the bridge of her nose with her wandless hand, "You weren't checking me out, right? Like, that's silly, right?"

"Of… course… that's... silly." Unfortunately, the veins underneath my face betray my true feelings.

"So… so you were. Checking me out. Wow… you were checking me out. That's… more than a little insane."

"Er… sorry. I'm very much aware that I despise men checking me out, and yet I do the same to women I... er, fancy, and I know my attentions can be… unwanted. So please believe me when I say I deeply apologize." At that, I incline my head, but she just snorts.

"That's definitely not the issue. That is… SO not the issue. Merlin..." She just shakes her head, with a wry smile, "Bellatrix, are you a lesbian?"

"What's that?" Is that a muggle term?

"...right, Wizarding World. A woman who is exclusively attracted to, or exclusively has sex with, other women." She recites, almost out of a dictionary, and I cringe… cringe at how accurate it sounds.

"Well… I am being married at the end of this… well, I was to be married at the end of 1969." I say, "So, I suppose I can't really say that." Much as I wish that weren't the case… Fucking arranged marriages.

"Hmm. Was to be married? What do you mean by that?"

"Well, from what I can tell, we're in the future. How far, I'm not sure, but this building is definitely not from my time. We spent a bit of time looking at the upper floors, and there were some odd looking contraptions."

"Hmm. Close enough to the truth." She says with an approving nod, "Wait, did you say we? Is there… someone else here?"

Leaning out of the door, I yell for Cissy. Once I hear her stomping her way down, I turn back to this strange, beautiful witch… to find her face contorted in anger. Why? Was she… hoping it would just be the two of us?

Merlin this is so not the time to be thinking that sort of thing...

"NARCISSA is here?" She's more than angry, she's LIVID. Something odd is going on here. Why does she look like she's about to exude steam out her ears? Was she just expecting me? Actually, hold on. There's something else that seems strange...

"Why do you know our names?" I admit to being caught off guard by an… extremely pretty face, but this strange witch was, in all actuality, severely suspicious. Even more suspicious than the lack of people besides us three. I didn't know her, and I doubt Cissy knew her either. Not to mention she was clearly older than the two of us; in her mid twenties, maybe. She also had a wand, and both of us were without. She could demand us to do anything we wanted, and it'd be hard to battle a witch without a wand. Especially considering neither of us are very… in shape.

She breathes out slowly before saying, "That's a very, very long story I'd rather not tell twice, if you don't mind." I shrug in response, and her response was a little relieving. Obviously she could be preparing to tell a lie, but at least she was preparing to tell us something. We could figure out if it was a lie once we got together, but at least this strange witch wasn't preparing to kill the two of us.

Well, hopefully.

"Bella?" Cissy enters the door and tilts her head towards the strange interloper, "Um, who are you?"

"That's right… You don't know me." She says slowly, staring at Narcissa with a considering look in her eye, but she holds out her hand anyway, "Hermione Granger."

"Oh, my name is Narcissa Black." They shake easily, and it comes to mind that I haven't even formally introduced myself. Even if she knows my name, it's still polite, right?

"Bellatrix Black." I offer her my hand and she grabs it, though not as easily as she grabs Narcissa. Once we touched, however, the warmness of her skin sent me into a shiver… She noticed it as well, though it didn't seem to affect her. She merely closed her eyes and looked towards the sky.

"Narcissa… and Bellatrix, actually. How old are you two?" She knew our names but not our ages?

"I'm 18, and Cissy is 14." At that, Hermione sighed deeply.

"Merlin. Okay. Okay. Let me think…" She starts pacing in this small little room, seemingly deep in thought, "Maybe it would be best if you ask what you want to ask, and then I can extrapolate from there. I know everyth- nearly everything about the current situation, but I'm honestly finding it hard to explain. I guess it'd be like… trying to rationalize and explain the galleon-sickle-knut system to a little muggle child. Not that I think of you two as children, of course!" She reassures, "But honestly, I'd be hard pressed to explain this situation to anyone, even if they WERE magical."

Hmm. Well, at least she's not doubting my intelligence.

"What date is this?" I ask, though it's hardly the most important question I have. I want to make sure Cissy keeps up, and considering I didn't tell her about my license plate thing, she needs to be on the same page.

"2001. I'd tell you the specific date, but that's… irrelevant." Interesting choice of words.

"Oh! That's why… okay. That would explain that weird device we found on the second floor." Narcissa looks surprised for a brief second, but she gets it now.

"Oh, I believe that would be a computer." She brightens for a quick second, almost as though she wants to explain what those are, but slumps, "Honestly, I'd love to explain what it is and how it works, but that would take… approximately way too long."

"We're not stupid." I argue, but she shakes her head.

"You don't need to get indignant. I would simply have trouble explaining it, mostly because I actually know very little about HOW it works, and I doubt my explanation would be good enough."

"Fine." Really, not important, "Where is everyone else?"

"...Not here." She answers with a petulant smile, and I grit my teeth.

"I can see that, you… Mud-ggleborn." Clearly this woman is a... muggleborn. I've never heard of the surname Granger before, and she at least knows about muggle contraptions. Good thing I stopped myself from saying she was a mudblood, because aggravating the only person in our little group with a wand sounds like an easy way to get yourself hexed.

Oddly, though, she looks pleased, "At least you aren't completely different…"

"Seriously. Where is everyone else?" I press, and she just sighs.

"There should be… well, as far as I knew, there were 14 people, including me." She says, oddly carefully, "But I didn't know Narcissa was here, so I have no idea. More than 14, that's all I know."

"Where is 'here'?" I ask, hoping she would be a little more forthcoming.

"Well, not 'there'. That's for sure." She grins cheekily, and Merlin I would love to have my wand right now, so I could…

…

Hit her with a truth spell. Nothing else. I certainly didn't want to… punish her, for her cheekiness…

"Why aren't you telling us where we are?" Narcissa looks incensed, "Surely we need all the information we can get."

"...You're right. I can tell you something, at least." She moves over to a nearby countertop and retrieves a pen and some blank paper from a nearby cabinet. She hunches over and starts writing something. Staring at the odd, muggleborn witch, I examine her robes. They were of fine make, though not nearly as fine as how we were clothed. Not to mention the slightly different cut, most likely the result of 40 years of, well, the style changing. She was even wearing muggle trainers, and they were oddly colorful. They were also in a far different style-

"Um… Bella." Narcissa's voice interrupts my introspection, and I can see she's moved within arm's length of me "Are you staring at her butt?" She whispers.

…

"I was merely studying her… strange style of clothing." I say quietly, and Narcissa gives me one of those looks that she no doubt inherited from our mother. The one that she always uses when I try to get out of those stuffy balls I was always being forced to attend with horrid lies that would never work.

"Mmhm."

I don't think I could be less convincing if I tried. Merlin, what was it about this witch that enchanted me? Even after correctly assuming her status as a… muggleborn, I was still attracted to her. I've had those crushes before, but if they were of 'impure' blood, I usually just… ignored them. Publicly, at least. It wasn't ever worth the trouble. Of course… since they were in the future… Maybe our world...

"Here." Hermione pushes a paper into my hands, interrupting my thoughts, and I stare. It seems to be an approximation of a map, and it's definitely environs I've seen before. Across the Themes was the magical capital of the city! Oddly, she only drew the parts of the city that were within the Inner Ring Road. If her map was correct, and I had no reason to doubt her (about this, at least, because it would be a silly thing to lie about), they were only a 30 minute walk to Diagon Alley or the Ministry.

"Okay, okay." Narcissa nods, and I notice her looking around my shoulder, "You said there were supposed to be 14 people here… but not me. What does that mean?"

"...Not answering that." At my disbelieving look, she bites back, "We don't have time to answer 20 questions! We can talk more once we get across the Themes."

"Where are we going?" Narcissa asks, slightly sulkily.

"Across the Themes!" Hermione answers cheerfully, and at Cissy's angry glare she amends, "Honestly, I'm not sure of that myself. I've done some cursory investigation, on this side of the river, and everything seems normal. I don't think that'll quite be the case for the other side, however, and I wanted to wait for you to wake up, Bellatrix."

"Wait, you were awake before us? Wait a tick. You were the one casting the blasting curse... Why the fuck were you casting a blasting curse above my floor? Surely there were other ways to wake me up."

She only gives me that cheeky grin and I can't help but turn away.

...

In annoyance.


	2. Emerald Potion

"So… If I may ask, how do you have a wand? Neither me or Cissy have one." I definitely let myself get distracted by her… immense beauty… but I need to keep a unbiased eye on her. I don't know if she's the one that brought us to, er, wherever we are, but she knows who did at least. So I can't let my guard down, if not for my sake, but for Cissy's sake.

"Oh, I found it." At my unimpressed look, "I told you I did some exploring, right? I was trying to figure out what was different about… this place, and I couldn't find anything. Everything was exactly as I remembered it. And, as it turns out, one of my former classmates lives nearby. I went into her house and, well, took the spare wand she had." And as my look changes to greedy, she frowns, "She only had one… and for the record, I'm not even sure you can USE a wand. Either of you."

"and what's THAT supposed to mean, you… you… muggleborn?" I snarl, and I can't believe this… this HUSSY insulted my magical ability! Cissy looks pretty steamed too, and Hermione looks surprised at our reactions.

"Oh! No, not like that. Bellatrix, trust me. I would NEVER underestimate you." She gives me a significant look that that I miss completely, "And Narcissa is no slouch either. No, if I'm right, you were placed under a sort of curse, that would prevent you from accessing your magic. Think of it like losing your voice."

"Any of my magic?" That does not fill me with any confidence… If it was merely us being incompatible with centering our magic through a wand, then I could at least try and use wandless magic.

"Well, maybe accidental magic." She says, thought it seems more like speculation then anything solid. Still, if that's true, neither of us are TRULY powerless. Wait, hold on.

"And this curse… wasn't placed on you?" Cissy asks suspiciously.

"I'll tell you later." She quickly walked past us back into the stairway, and we follow, both annoyed at the complete lack of satisfactory answers we are being given. While it's true that at least she isn't, you know, cursing us or anything, leading us around without telling us much of anything is hardly any better.

We start down the road, though I'm much too distracted staring at everything to listen to Hermione and Narcissa's conversation. It's… strange, to be in a gigantic city with no people in it. There's a melancholy there, but there's also… excitement. I can't help but feel excited. Despite the fact I have no wand, despite the fact that we're dependant on someone who refuses to tell us all the answers…

I feel happier now than I ever did at Hogwarts.

Mindlessly going to the lessons. Listening to the stupidly simple and basic explanations of how to float a feather, or transfigure a snail into an alarm clock. Waiting for them to let us practice and then, minutes later, doing the spell correctly. Always, always the first one to do it. Getting assigned homework I could've completed before the class even started. Going back to the dorms, writing the homework, and then reading… reading books about stuff that actually matters, but never getting to use any of that knowledge. Because everyone at Hogwarts is a… is a moron.

"Do you have any tips on how someone might trigger accidental magic… on purpose?" Cissy's voice interrupts my inner monologue, "Just in case…"

"Well, other than being in a hard situation… not really." Hermione says apologetically, "Sorry."

"I've never even thought to study wandless magic." I say, "I guess it was just arrogance, but… I never thought I'd need it."

"Not a lot of people do, even the muggleborns." Hermione offers, "And it's bloody hard, too. You can spend hours and hours and hours training, and get nothing to show for it other than a feather you've floated a foot off the ground."

Once we get to the end of Great Dover street, I look at Hermione, waiting for her to decide where we were going.

"Up." She says, pointing towards the road up to London Bridge, "It's the farthest away from the Ministry and Diagon Alley, so if any of the bridges would be safe, it would be that one."

"Say… you sound exceptionally worried about what we'll find on the other side of the river." I ask quietly, trying to not let Cissy hear, "Do you know… what we're facing? Should we be preparing for something?"

"That… is a good question." She says just as quietly, "Honestly, I have very little idea of what we'll find on the other side of the river. Well, I have ideas, I have theories, just not… knowledge."

"Truly? You're not lying?" I don't think she is, but best to ask anyway.

"I give you my word." She says, as though that's supposed to mean something coming from someone so secretive and obviously guilty of… something. Even if she wasn't the one who kidnapped us, she's still complicit in this whole situation. Somehow.

I don't want to needlessly antagonize her though, so I merely nod my assent and continue along quietly. As we walk quietly to the bridge, I finally start to take stock of this more modern interpretation of London. It's definitely changed from what I remember. Not much, because the style is still the same, but updated nonetheless. The technology is obviously improved too, because something catches my eye: a small little business, advertising for devices called… cell phones.

"What are cell phones? I'm aware of what phones are, of course… Obviously, I've been through the visitor entrance of the Ministry before, so anyone from our world who doesn't know how a phone works is a moron." I raise my voice to allow Cissy into the conversation, as she was off looking at the various buildings, and I suspect she was also taking stock at how much London had changed. I think. Wait, did she look a little… older?

"Oh. They're kind of a new thing. I'm not sure of HOW they work, necessarily; something about satellites?" She sounds slightly disappointed in herself, "Merlin, do I feel out of touch sometimes… Anyway, you can use these phones wherever you get the connection, so you can call when you're out and about."

Hmm. That did sound mildly useful. They sounded similar to the two way mirrors rich families all seemed to have, though the big problem with the mirrors is that you could only contact the brother mirror.

"Hey, that reminds me." Hermione says, and waits for the both of us to face her before she continues, "Can you tell me how Hogwarts was like in the 60's?"

"Well, considering I've never gone to Hogwarts except IN the 60's, it's a little hard to compare, yeah?" I wait a few seconds before replying, "I don't know. It seemed quite normal to me. Fairly boring, for the most part. Going to class, going to Hogsmeade, writing exams, dealing with arrogant Gryffindors…"

"Slytherin through and through, huh?" She smirks, not unkindly, "I happen to be one of those Gryffindors."

"I'm sorry for your loss." I bow my head in solidarity, and she just giggles.

"We ARE a smidge snotty, huh?" She remarks, but Cissy shakes her head.

"Hey, not all of you are bad. The ones from my year are quite nice towards us Slytherins, actually… Well, most of them."

"Weird. In my time, I rarely, if ever, met a Slytherin in my time at Hogwarts that wasn't calling me a Mudblood or, at best, ignoring me." Hermione shrugs, "We were all teenagers, of course, so I get it, but it was a little disappointing."

"The ones from my year are all idiots." I snort, and Cissy just shakes her head in response.

"Bella, you think EVERYONE from your year is an idiot." She points out, "Even some of the teachers!"

"I assume you got all O's on your N.E.W.T.s." She says airily, and I nod.

"I've always been considered the smartest witch in my year, even if there's a bunch of Ravenclaws who take umbrage with that statement." Hermione rolls her eyes with a knowing smile.

"Same with me. Plenty of Ravenclaws got so offended that a Gryffindor was considered smarter than the rest of them." She chuckles, "I've always found that so… ridiculous. The hat wanted to put me in Ravenclaw too, but I asked for Gryffindor instead. The hat will always take your request into account."

"Really?" That… seems off, to me. If that were really the case, why was there such contention between Slytherin and the other houses? I admit, I only had to touch the hat on my head for it to put me in Slytherin, but was that what was happening on those children who had it on for a minute or more?

"I know, right? My best friend, one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, almost got put in Slytherin. But being in Slytherin doesn't make you a bad person, even if they were all berks in school. I have a few co-workers that were in Slytherin, and they're perfectly fine."

"Where do you work?"

"Unspeakable." My suspicion, already high, raises slightly and she gives me a knowing look, "I know that makes me a little more suspicious, but I don't want to lie. I'd rather not tell you something than lie."

"Fair enough." Obviously not a Slytherin way of thinking, but it's something I can respect at least, "How is it?" I've always been interested in magic theory, and with how stagnant the Wizarding World is… The unspeakable job has always held my interest for being the only place in the British Ministry of Magic actually doing research of any kind.

"It's actually a lot less interesting than I thought it'd be. Well, maybe that's not fair. I was probably putting too much expectation in it… but I've done some really interesting research, personally, and one of my favorite parts of the job is the weekly staff meeting, where a bunch of representatives from the different disciplines come together and talk about their own research. Well, as long as it's not secret. That does happen from time to time." She explains.

"And the ministry allows muggleborns to work there?" I ask, and at her unimpressed look I grimace, "I don't mean it like that. I've heard rumors that the Ministry doesn't allow muggleborns to become unspeakables. Obviously I don't know a whole lot of people who ARE one, but it's just a rumor I've heard."

"Not at all. That does make me curious, though. You've mostly called me muggleborn, and even when I didn't deny it you still treated me the same way. Obviously I know this situation we're in is quite… extraordinary, and you probably fear angering me, but..." She gives me a scrutinizing glance, "Do you… not believe in blood purity?"

"If you want me to be truthful? Yes, I do believe that I'm better for being born to magical parents vs. you who wasn't. But honestly, if I wasn't under the yoke of my parents, I probably wouldn't care all that much. I simply have advantages that you, with parents as muggles, wouldn't have. Narcissa…, well, she doesn't believe in it either." She doesn't believe a whole lot of what our parents tell her, to be honest.

"Andromeda doesn't believe in it at all. She's all sweet on that Tonks fellow." I roll my eyes at Cissy's interjection, but that does raise a certain question...

"Andi isn't here, right?" At Hermione's shake of the head I tilt my own head and ask, "Why just us two?"

"Well, actually, it should just be you." She corrects, "But if you're worried about Andi, don't be. Anyway, you say you believe in blood purity… but not that much? What's that supposed to mean? I thought it was pretty much a black and white belief, personally."

"Do I believe that you, as a muggleborn, are inherently inferior to me because of something so simple as blood? No." Well, not REALLY, but I'm certainly not aiming to antagonize the only one of our party that can use a wand, "But there are certain advantages that me and Cissy have, that you don't, and unless you're extremely smart it can be hard to fight against those advantages. So your blood isn't what makes your kind inferior, the fact that you don't know the Wizarding World exists until you're 11 years old makes you inferior."

She stops walking, oddly, and when I look back her face is twisted in… humor? Sadness? I walk back and… I don't know, touch her to try and comfort her or something, but she twists her arm away from mine and moves closer to Narcissa. She's starts giggling a little, though, so… What happened to her?

"So. You don't really believe in blood purity at all." She sounds sarcastic, "But the simple fact that many magical children born to non-magical families are running at a disadvantage, which is entirely true. I've brought this very issue up with the Minister, and we've had talks about introducing a sort of… introductory course for muggleborn children before they come to Hogwarts."

"That sounds like a fantastic idea." I answer easily.

You… are a lot different to what I expected." She says.

"And what did you expect?" I ask simply, "Obviously you know about me, but I'm not really sure how. I don't appreciate being at a disadvantage..."

"..." She stops again, but this time it's perfectly understandable. We're finally close enough to see the bridge, and...

What in Merlin's name happened to London Bridge? Right at the spot where the bridge is actually crossing the water, A wall blocks our way. It covers the entire width of the bridge, and I can tell it's thick. Perhaps 4-5 meters? About as tall as a 6 story building, as well. It looks connected to the walls of the two buildings on either end, so we couldn't even hop off to the water's edge from this road. That wasn't the only weird thing, however.

There was a cauldron, right on the left hand lane. It looked oddly normal, like you'd find dotting a room inside Slughorn's potion class. Though we were quite far away, I could see the potion fumes from here. They looked sickly, emerald green, and very dangerous. Just then, Hermione broke out in a run and we both joined her. She ran faster than us, probably due to her being in… superior shape… so by the time we got to the strange wall, she was examining the cauldron very closely, circling it very quickly. She looks both angry and curious.

Now that we're here, I can see a simple looking goblet like you might use at Hogwarts nearly behind it, and on it says, 'drink to get across'. I've never seen this particular potion before, but I'm not a moron. There is no way that potion is safe to drink, and Narcissa looks similarly disgusted at the notion. Hermione, however, is studying the potion intently, moving her mouth but not saying anything. Once she finishes examining everything, she grabs the goblet and glares at it.

"This potion… I have no idea what it's called. Not even Snape knew what it was called. But according to my best friend, it's extraordinarily dangerous. I believe it induces fear, primarily, and delirium. I've never seen it before in my life, and the only one who has… well, anyway, Dumbledore had to drink this potion to get something on the bottom of the cauldron, and it reduced him to a blubbering, crying wreck."

"Merlin…" Narcissa backs away instantly and I can't say I blame her. I don't have a super high opinion of Dumbledore, personally, but one can't deny the man has power and intelligence in spades.

(His wisdom was always what I took issue with)

So to hear that, I take a step back too.

"You can't… vanish it, or anything?" I ask.

"If Dumbledore's only course of action was to drink this, I have a hard time imagining I could do anything about it." She does try to cast some spells at it, attempting to Vanish it, to Charm it, to Transfigure it into something else… but nothing works.

"Should we… try another bridge?" Narcissa asks, wearily.

"There are two avenues of thought I have on that subject." She ducks down and leans her nose on the cauldron's lip, "This bridge is the farthest away from Diagon Alley and the Ministry. If this is the protection they're using for this part of the bridge… They've either got similar potions on all of the bridges, or we're going to find something worse once we get closer."

"You don't think we can… swim, do you?" Narcissa asks, and though swimming in the Themes sounds like a great way to bathe in sludge… well, compared to that potion, it might be the best option. Obviously we can't get to the riverside here, but maybe by going through some of the buildings...

"Probably not. That'd kind of defeat the purpose." Merlin, she's being so secretive… if I had my wand…

"If what you say is true, and this potion affected someone like Dumbledore… I would rather take my chances with this, than to see what they might think is WORSE." I grimace, "Whoever 'they' are. But do you know if this affects the drinker afterward?"

"Dumbledore… was alright, if a little weak." Hermione answers, "It was a pretty crazy night that night, but from what Harry said… I think he was okay."

"I'll do it." Narcissa says, face full of fear.

"Cissy?" I was actually going to suggest I would do it, but I wasn't expecting her to say anything.

"Bella… You're going to be more useful than me, if we find another wand. Actually, we're both useless compared to Hermione, really, but I really don't want to see you… I can't see you drink this, and… feel that pain and delirium." She says that significantly, and I haven't the faintest idea what she means. Hermione looks between the two of us with interest.

"Well, I agree it should be one of us." I admit, "But… are you sure, Narcissa?"

"You… You're going to be more helpful than me. You're smarter, stronger, faster… I'm a little useless." She smiles awkwardly, "Please, Bella?"

"Okay." I step back a little further alongside Hermione, and allow Narcissa to stand towards the potion. Hermione looks oddly proud, for some reason.

She slowly dips down, grabbing the goblet from the ground where Hermione grabbed it and stands back up, looming over the potion. I can see her shaking already, and the part of me that can't stand the insults Andi gets for loving a Mudblood, or when Rabastian was bullying my little cousin is telling me to stop her… But what she says was entirely logical. We can't let Hermione drink it; she's our only caster at the moment, if what she says is true. And I would be in better shape to carry Narcissa, vs. the other way around. Part of me wants to turn away, but… I can't let her do this alone. I start inching closer to her.

She dips in the goblet, and comes back out with the goblet, almost dripping with the potion. The drops… they don't fall to the ground, but actually fall back INTO the potion. Almost like it was Summoning it back. So she takes her trembling hand, lifts the goblet to her lips… and drinks.

Her shoulders tense, but she doesn't seem any different… She goes quickly for the next couple, as though she were trying not to lose her nerve, and it was then that I could see the effect it was having. She was starting to shake, and I leap over to make sure she could stand. Hermione stayed back, watching the both of us presumably. Protecting us, maybe? Narcissa's face was pale, and she just kept dipping the goblet in, and swallowing the potion… By the time it was half drunk, she started moaning.

"No… Draco… Not… Please, no..." She slows her pace, and I… I want to take the goblet from her and do it myself, but… I start guiding her hand instead, feeling rotten for every dollop of potion I help her scoop up. She continues moaning, and nothing she's saying makes any sense to me. She keeps talking about a Draco… moaning this name, over and over again… but by the time she takes one of her last pulls, she says something shocking.

"Don't… Bella, please don't…Torture her… I want… I want… I want… My Bella back…" She's crying, and blubbering, and she looks incredibly ugly… Once I get the last portion down her throat, she throws the goblet away and jumps out of my grip. She lies face down on the street and she moves to beat her fists against the hard concrete, and I grab them quickly to prevent that. Meanwhile, I hear Hermione come up behind us...

"Somnum." She flicks her wand and I can feel Narcissa fall into an uneven sleep, with her arms still raised in the air. She's no doubt having nightmares about the things she saw while drinking the potion… Merlin, why did I let her do that!? Why didn't I insist on doing it instead, or having Hermione do it…

"Bellatrix… Trust me, she will be fine." She grabs my hand and gently lowers both mine and Narcissa's arm down to the ground. I let them go once they're both on the ground and I turn to the suddenly close older witch, her face inches from mine.

"She's my little sister. I've always tried to protect her from Mum, and Dad… and was actually successful at it, unlike with Andi." I say quietly, sitting up in a hurry to get away from the suddenly close muggleborn, not wanting to let her see my blushing face.

She casts a charm on Narcissa nonverbally, and she picks her up gently, to hand her to me. I grab her easily, and her smile seems to be trying to pick me up, "We should get going…" She points towards the rest of the bridge, and I finally notice the wall was gone, "Tell me about your parents? You don't get along?"

"It seems like all three of us have different problems with them. For me, it's always been how… honestly, how stupid they were. By the time I was 11, I could argue them into the ground if I wasn't afraid of being punished. For as dumb as my Father was, he's always had an issue with being shown up by us. Whether it was because we were girls or children, but…" I knew what she was doing, of course. Trying to distract me from my sister, and it was welcome, "Andi's big problem was the blood purity shite. Always curious about muggles, so she constantly was at war because she dared go outside and talk to a muggle or some such."

"What about Narcissa?" Hermione asks as they make their way down the ghostly empty bridge. There weren't even any cars on here.

"Well, I guess they've given up on me and Andromeda, so they're trying to make her into their perfect child. But she's not super obedient, so she constantly gets annoyed that they're more interested in her becoming Mrs. Malfoy instead of… just being her. She's excited to marry Lucius, for whatever reason, but it's not like she JUST wants to be his wife. Speaking of… do you know this… 'Draco'?"

"Yes." She says simply.

"Who are they?"

"He's… a man. He went to school with me, actually." She doesn't say it exactly, but she doesn't hide it either; he's Cissy's son. She was obviously following the naming conventions of our family... It was pretty obvious something not right was going on. If this was 2001, why were our bodies from 1968?

"...So he exists. Then the thing about me torturing someone…" I don't want to look directly at her, so I stare into Narcissa's pained face. Her mouth is moving, as though she were reliving some horrible dream. She… looks older, now that I study her closely. I'd thought she looked a tiny bit taller, but looking at her face so closely all but confirms it.

"...That was also true." She says quietly, "You torture someone." She says it so matter-of-factly that I can't help but want to deny it. Why would I torture someone? For what reason? What would I care about enough to torture for? But… she hasn't lied. Not that I can think of. So this must be true too.

I don't want to ask her. I really don't want to ask her. But I need to know. I desperately need to know, "Who… who did I torture? Why… when? Where? Why did I torture someone?"

"Do you really want to know?" She stops and faces me with a serious glare in her eyes, "Do you, Bellatrix Black age 18, really want to know why you would torture someone? What led you to that very moment, that instant… The instant you felt like torturing an innocent child was the right thing to do?" A child… Merlin, why would I torture a bloody child…

"I… I do." I don't, I really don't. I really really really really don't. But...

"Bellatrix. You're a smart woman. I can tell. You're like me," She says, still staring deeply into my eyes, "You can never leave well enough alone. If someone tells you don't need to know something, you bristle. You argue. You look up the answers anyway. Even if the answers… The answers bring you nothing but pain and misery. What if I told you that, the you RIGHT NOW… you would be appalled. Worse than appalled. You might not even care about yourself anymore. You might even want to jump off this bloody bridge." She covers her eyes with her hands, "Even after that, do you still want to know?

"Do I want to? Fuck… Fuck no. I don't want to know at all. But. But. I have to know. I have to. Please..."

"No. No you don't. You're being selfish." She's angry now, "We have to get out of here, Bellatrix. This potion was only the beginning. There will be further dangers up ahead, and they will be far more dangerous than that potion was, and we've already lost one of our number. Albeit temporarily. You're asking me to potentially cripple the SECOND of our little party, for nothing more than the pursuit of knowledge. No one likes a know-it-all, Bellatrix."

"PLEASE." I raise my voice, and I can feel Narcissa stir slightly. Hermione… her anger faded as quick as it appeared, leaving only pain.

"Fine. You don't get to say I didn't warn you." She rolls up the sleeve of her sweater on her right arm, only to reveal… MUDBLOOD. Carved, right there, into her flesh. Uneven, clearly carved with a slightly dull blade… Merlin. I tortured… her? The woman I foolishly flirted with? I flirted with… someone, who had every right to want me dead, and I flirted with someone who I felt the need to torture so cruelly. How can she even be around me? If someone did that to me, I'm not even sure I could look them in the eye, and yet… she's been completely friendly to me...

"See? Do you feel happy now?" She says as she rolls back her sweater, and I can feel my knees shake, even with Narcissa under a feather-light charm.

"I… I-I did that… T-To you?" I stutter, and she can sense my unease because she walks over and grabs me by the shoulders. I… set Narcissa down gently, and stare back into her eyes.

"Bellatrix. Please, don't fall into despair." She says gently, "Bella, I… The one who carved that into my arm was a woman driven mad. A woman so deeply unhappy, so deeply miserable that she abandoned every single thing you hold dear. A stupid, stupid woman who was obsessed with an evil, horrible man who treated her like she was nothing. Who treated her like nothing more than a misbehaving dog. You… You are not that woman."

"I… I'm not?"

"You are Bellatrix Black. You are an 18 year old teenager, someone who values intelligence. Who loves her sisters more than anything in the world. Who doesn't believe in blood purity, not because you're a nice person, but because it's bloody well stupid."

"Y-Yeah…" I say.

"You are Bellatrix Black. You are not Bellatrix Lestrange."

"I… I am Bellatrix Black, not Bellatrix Lestrange." I repeat, my voice wavering with emotion.

"You are not evil."

"I am… not… evil."

"You are a pathetic lesbian."

"I am a pathet-" I stop, and her GRIN. Her fucking grin… She's… joking, with me? How can she joke with someone like-

"Bella." She lets my shoulders go, and I can feel the tension draining from them, "I don't blame you for anything. You've done nothing wrong. Can you repeat that last part for me?"

"I've… done nothing wrong."

I wish I could believe that.


	3. Evanesco

I was going to post this yesterday but I got distracted by Dx2. OH WELL

* * *

"Hey, Bella… I think we need to get going." She's calm, but firm, and I can only nod in response.

We start walking off the bridge, Narcissa still stirring in my arms. As we begin our exit, I look out into the ocean and notice the creatures dwelling. Both magical and muggle, true, but all dangerous. Even if we all had magic, I doubt that'd be enough to prevent the multitude of sharks from ripping our limbs off.

"Bella?" Cissy says slowly, and she looks around, "Bella?"

"I'm here Cissy. How are you feeling?" I ask her kindly, and she merely continues to looks around.

"I… I can walk." She doesn't answer, and though I feel a little worried about her, I can't really prevent her from walking. I set her down gently, with Hermione lifting the charm she placed her under, and she gets up gingerly. Once she stands up, she notices Hermione. Narcissa was acting as suspicious as I was, but now she almost seems… familiar?

"Granger?" She says, looking oddly cool and composed, "What are… where are we?"

"What do you remember?

"Memories… I have… memories. Of my son, Draco. It's disjointed. I have some from when he was 3 years old, and I have some from when he was… 16, perhaps? One, in particular, sticks out to me." She gives Hermione an odd glance, "It was the summer before his second year, as I recall, and he was complaining about the… muggleborn that was beating him in all his classes. He was extremely indignant, and I remember Lucius arguing that he should try and do something about her. I don't quite recall how it ended up like this, but I do believe Lucius tried to curse him. Fortunately, Draco was able to dodge it and I was able to calm Lucius down."

"That sounds like Draco alright." Hermione snorts, "Do you remember anything else? About… me, being in Malfoy Manor?"

"...Yes. It's really… fragmented, and broken, but." She turns, slowly, towards me and she looks at me as though she doesn't know who I am… She's looking at me like I'm just some 7th year, "Who is this? This can't be…"

"We need to get to Diagon Alley." She avoids the answer, but turns her back to the both of us, "Telling you everything now would be useless. We need to get you two wands."

"I thought we couldn't use them?" I ask.

"That was just an educated guess." She sniffs, "I can admit to being wrong, and I have been wrong several times in the past."

"Not according to Draco. Didn't you try and 'free' house elves?" Narcissa… I feel odd, now, calling her Cissy, says with amusement, "S.P.E.W., wasn't it?" Merlin, was that supposed to be an acronym for something? That does sound like something a second year would come up with.

"I was excessively idealistic." She answers coolly, "Can we get moving? I don't want to stand here and get ambushed by whatever's waiting out there."

"Right." I want to get moving too. I want the full answers, which I don't think are coming until we get to Diagon Alley. Narcissa nods as well and we hurry off the bridge. Hermione, leading the way. She points to the stairway down to the road underneath, and we hurry down. Once we get to Upper Themes St, Narcissa grabs both of our arms.

"We can't walk down this street." She warns, "There's something there, besides that building. Some sort of runic trap, almost. I'm not sure what it's going to do, but it looks connected to the building." She's pointing at the road, and I can just barely see what she's talking about. Hermione notices it too, and she groans.

"Damn, you're right. I'm not sure I can disarm it, either." She murmurs, "Let's try going towards the river end of the building. The, er, tripwire only goes across the street, and I doubt they'd put a second one in that little alleyway." So we slow down quite a bit, making sure we don't run into any traps. Once we get to the intersection, we head down to the left and I can feel us sandwiched between two buildings, that if they both exploded, there was no way we'd survive.

Luckily, there seemed to be no problems, and we made our way next to the river. The sludgy brown of the Themes disgusts me, not to mention the various monsters, but I can't let that bother me now. We make our way up the walkway, keeping silent. I guess we're trying to make sure we don't attract attention, but it's not like we've seen anyone else. Anything else, either. Hermione points towards a small little alleyway to make our way back to the street, and we follow her.

"How odd." Narcissa notes, "Why wouldn't there be a trap here?" She points towards the small but foreboding tunnel in front of us, and I can't help but agree.

"I suspect they expected someone to get trapped by that earlier instance, and not this one. Still…" She waves her wand expertly, scanning the tunnel with various diagnostic spells, before nodding at us. We start inching our way through the miniature tunnel, with Hermione leading the way.

"Narcissa." I say quietly, trying to not let Hermione hear, "Who… what's going on?" With you, I wanted to ask. With me. With anyone.

"... I'm not quite sure myself." She admits, "I have memories of myself from the time period that Granger has described, and everything she says rings true to me. Well, they don't ring false is a more accurate way to put it. I don't know her very well, as I'm not sure we've met all that often… but Draco, my son, has talked at length about her. She's very smart, and a favorite of the staff. A teacher's pet, perhaps." She doesn't say it with any malice, which… well, considering people have used that insult on me…

"You have memories of me, too, right?" I ask. She grimaces, but nods, "Tell me." I know Hermione told me off for this earlier, but I still want more information. Still… I still want to believe in myself, that I wouldn't torture someone for no good reason other than the love of some man.

"... I would rather Hermione tell us everything first." She shuffles closer to the Muggleborn and that just sets my mood down lower than it already was. My sister is afraid of me… Or the me that I become, at least. How could I let myself become that kind of person?

Right after exiting the tunnel, I can sense something. An eerie, dead feeling. I can feel the times when I'm in my bed, in the Slytherin dorms, cursing the utter pointlessness of this. The classes, the books, the everything. I can feel the despair that followed when my father told me I would be marrying Rabastian Lestrange, and my first instinct was to fight him… but I fixed my face into a smile and said okay. The helplessness I felt when my father went off on Andromeda for daring to ask questions about blood purity and muggle-baiting, and I said nothing.

I can feel… something. In the soul I thought was dim and fading away.

"Dementors." Hermione says firmly, "There are dementors in the area. Three in total, perhaps. Be careful about the things it makes you feel. They aren't… they are real, yes, but don't give into them." She's so… brave, and stout, and I'm… I'm fucking shivering. Narcissa isn't looking very good either, but at least her fucking knees aren't knocking together like a coward.

Who am I? I thought myself smarter than everyone else, better than everyone else… but am I, really? I've learned from books. From family. From the dark, and the light. And yet… I quail at the sight of three dementors. Not even SIGHT! We just FEEL THEM! Merlin!

"Shite. I worry this is going to give away our position. Bellatrix, Narcissa, find someplace to hide." She directs us easily, and I feel a strange desire to stay, even though I can't help one single bit… almost as though I were trying to prove something to myself. But… When Narcissa drags me back a few yards away, I can feel my knees calm down.

"There!" Narcissa points, and I see three of them appear from behind some trees. They're moving quickly, and they're headed straight for our caster. Merlin, Merlin, if she goes down, we'll have nowhere to go. We will just have to run, futility, against these horrid, disgusting creatures, until we can't run anymore and they steal our souls.

"Expecto Patronum!" She shouts, and a perfect patronus bursts from her wand. The cute little otter causes the dementors to fly up into the sky, and seemingly to the other side of the river… She barely looks affected by them, and I can't believe how much better she is than me, "Well, shall we go?"

"Thanks, Hermione." I say quietly once we make our way back over to her, shuffling as though I was caught with my hands in the cookie jar.

"Uh… no problem." She sticks her wand back into her robes and we continue on our way. We're moving much slower than we were before, because if there are dementors around there have to be other creatures as well.

"You cast that spell very well." I say, in order to break the silence, "I've never been able to cast a Patronus. I've tried over and over, but that's the one spell I could never get the hang of… it infuriates me. I can cast magic so much more powerful than that, so why can't I…"

"... Do you even have a memory worth using?" She questions, "My best friend… well, he's the best out of all of us in DADA, and he had all the motivation in the world to learn it. But it took him a long time, with a lot of attempts against a… well, a boggart pretending to be a dementor." She frowns, "His life was never great. His aunt and uncle abused him constantly, and it was hard for him to find a memory good enough in the wake of that. You spoke of your problems with your parents, right?"

"That's… perhaps that's not all it is." I sigh, stopping at the intersection to allow Hermione to scan the area, "While it's true that my parents are small-minded, awful people… I've never really cared enough, about anything, to be happy. There are only three things that make me happy, and none of them are really fulfilling… My sisters, for one. Even if Andromeda is a Gryffindor pretending to be a Slytherin and Narcissa has an unhealthy attraction for that awful Malfoy boy-"

"...True." Narcissa agrees with me? This must be her future memories speaking, not the one I know. She's obsessed with the little snob.

"I love them with all my heart. Not that that means much… Magic makes me happy too, but it's rarely challenging. I just keep learning and learning from books, even from our library full of hard, dark spells, and it's just so easy, you know?" Hermione looks understanding, which I suspected, "Everyone kept warning me that 7th year was this hard, arduous thing, and I thought it was a JOKE. Really? THIS was hard? Lastly… Ah, well…" I turn red, not wanting to say it, but…

"Her secret girlfriends." Narcissa fills in, amusement dancing in her eyes, "She must've slept with all the girls in the school who were open to that sort of thing. Even with a couple of teachers…"

"Teachers? Really?" Hermione looks like she wants to admonish me, but she just looks amused.

"I slept with the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher my 7th year… and then, when she ended up pregnant, I slept with her replacement." It wasn't really that big of a deal… both of them were under the age of 30, "But even that… it wasn't fulfilling, you know? Nobody I dated was going to have a future with me."

"Because you were going to be married, to someone against your will." She finishes her spells and we continue, "Arranged marriages are barbaric."

"I agree. But I wasn't looking to fight with my parents about it. Not because I couldn't, or anything… but I honestly hadn't dated anyone worth fighting for. The truth is… When you told me I would become a person that would carve Mudblood into your arm, I was frightened. Not because I couldn't fathom me becoming that person… but because I could."

"Hmm. How so?" She doesn't look offended, but she is keeping her eye on my face.

"Well… The Wizarding World is so stagnant! Magic is this amazing thing, you know? We know that everything works. The spells, jinxes, curses. Runes, whatever. But we know so little about HOW it all works!" I seethe, thinking about all those teachers, "By my 7th year, I was smarter than all of those stupid morons called teachers. Not because I KNEW more than them. No, the exact opposite: Because I can admit I don't know enough! No one does! All of them are so… sure of themselves. So pompous."

"When you know full well that if you asked Flitwick how, say, the Cheering Charm worked… he wouldn't have an answer." She guesses, "You want to know why the spells work. You want to search for the answers to questions no one really cares to ask, let alone answer."

"Which is why the only job I'd ever be interested in is an Unspeakable. It feels like they're the only ones actually putting thought into anything! But… that's… That's it. That's all I really feel passionate about. Other than that. I just… I just can't bring myself to care all that much."

"So, if you met someone who gave you passion…" She trails off, and looks at me with these amazingly sad eyes, "You'd follow them with no hesitation. Even if that eventually led you to torturing someone like me."

"...You're not mad?" I ask with slight trepidation.

"Not at all. Well, maybe, but at you. Keep in mind that I live in this city, right now… do you know how much our world has progressed since the 1960's?"

"I'm going to say not very much."

"It's… frustrating. It really is." She sighs, "Like, for example, that computer you found. The invention of that device changed the muggle world. More than you can even imagine. I can send a message, via e-mail, to anyone around the world who also owns a computer. Instantly, pretty much." She sniffs, "We still use quills! QUILLS!"

"Merlin, that's… depressing." I suppose… well, I suppose I was right to not care about our world. To not even try.

"I'm trying my best. It's why I became an Unspeakable. Because I want to innovate. To introduce new ideas. But even then, there are still older Unspeakables that fight me every step of the way." She sighs, "So, no. I don't hate you. I'm not mad at you. Honestly? I'm not even sure you were wrong." Narcissa, who was barely paying attention, swiveled her head around severely.

"How so?" I ask, grimacing.

"You had to try something. You had to… step outside your comfort zone, to try something dangerous, just in the hopes that SOMETHING would change. That SOMETHING would innovate, and change. So when someone like him showed up..."

"Granger." Narcissa says dangerously, "You are talking about the man who helped kill-"

"I'm not excusing him. He wasn't an innovator. Merlin, his entire ethos was all about becoming more insular. But… I do excuse Lestrange, somewhat. Well, maybe not excuse. After meeting with you, Bella, I can completely understand how someone like her could become someone like… that." Hermione grimaces, and Narcissa looks slightly irritated.

"You are excusing… her? Merlin. I hope you realize that not everything can be forgiven. Some people don't deserve second chances…"

"Well, some people might say that about you, Narcissa." She says quietly, and Narcissa just faces away from the both of them.

"Is it just me, or does Narcissa look… older?" I ask Hermione quietly, and she studies the back of Narcissa up and down.

"She has some of her memories, so… I guess that'd be it." She infers, "I mean, it's 2001. How old are you?"

"50-51." I say with a grimace.

"Right. Looking at you now, it's actually pretty eye opening." She scans me quickly, "Plus, I've never seen you look so… put together. Narcissa always was, of course, but…"

"Because I'm crazy, I don't care about anything."

"Right. Er… by the way, I think we should avoid that tunnel." She raises her voice and points towards the larger tunnel, "That other tunnel wasn't nearly as long, after all, and staying where it's light seems safer to me." Both me and Narcissa nod, and we follow her to the road off to the right. Once we get close to the top of the hill, however… I can feel a slight shake.

"Earthquake?" Narcissa asks, and before I can even get a word in, she grabs the both of us and starts running to a nearby building. She tries to open the door, which is locked, before using the Alohomora and holding the door open for us.

"It's best to hide under a doorway during an earthquake!" She urges us in, and even though it sounds like really stupid advice (wouldn't we do better in the open street?), we both do it anyway. We only just get in when the earthquake really starts, and it's more vicious than I was expecting. The glass of the nearby building explodes, as does the one in our building. Oddly enough, we seem to be safe; it seems to be a sort of maintenance area and is clear of anything that could harm us.

I'm huddled to the right of the doorway, and Narcissa is to the left, but Hermione is standing over both of us. Once she can see we're both holding our respective doors open, she also huddles down and… she's squatting right next to me, and her hands are close to my legs… She's so close, if she moved her arms a little closer she'd be hugging me...

Merlin, there's a better time to think about things like that!

"I think it's beginning to cool off." She states, and I can definitely feel the ground stop shaking as hard.

"Is that… normal? It's only been a minute, if that…" Narcissa asks, mystified.

"I think so? I've never been in one myself." She says, and when the ground stops shaking she stands back up and inches closely to the ruined road. It's full of cracks and parts of it have just fallen. Not to mention the multiple panes of glass that shattered, falling on the road…

"Evanesco." She vanishes the glass right outside the doorway, and she proceeds to keep casting it to make a pathway through the broken glass. We follow along, and we're moving slower than ever, but at least we don't get pierced by the glass. However, once we get on the next part of the road…

"Er…" it looks far less damaged. Many of the closer buildings have some damage, and there's still some glass on the roads, but it only goes on for one block at most. Looking back towards the east, it's much the same story. Narcissa looks as surprised as I am, but Hermione doesn't seem all that shocked.

"It must've been localized to that hill." She theorizes, "I bet there was a similar trap on the tunnel above Upper Themes St. as well." Probably for the best we didn't go through that then.

"Which way do we go once we get to the end of this street? It funnels us to the next bridge, if it's still the same…"

"I think we should head up to Fleet St." She says what I was thinking, and Narcissa nods as well, "It's probably safer to be on a wider road, just in case something like that happens again. Though I have my doubts we'll hit another earthquake…"

"You don't think we'll find anymore Dementors, do you?" Narcissa asks slowly.

"I want to say no, but I was shocked enough to find them here in the first place." She holsters her wand after Vanishing the last of the glass on Queen Victoria St, "That frightens me way more than the earthquake."

"Agreed." I'd definitely rather die in an earthquake than have my soul sucked out… I'm not scared of much, but facing Dementors without a wand sounds like one of those very things.

We walk a little quicker down the street, and Hermione doesn't even bother to scan the street. I wonder if she thinks our ordeals are over? Or at least, they're over for now. We aren't that close to Diagon Alley, so maybe the traps are more numerous… All of the sudden, Narcissa stops right in the middle of the road, and since she was in front… we both almost ran into her.

"Hey, Granger… Are you… dating Ronald Weasley?" She says, as though she doesn't really believe her own memories. Wait, what?

"I'm sorry… you were dating a Weasley!?" And a boy? I could've sworn… Oh well.

"How did you know that, Narcissa?" She has an unpleasant look on her face, "Are you gaining more of your memories?"

"A little bit. They're still fragmented, but I seem to recall… Draco telling me you two were dating. Surprisingly, considering how often he complained about you, he just said you could do better."

"Ha, that sounds like Draco alright." Hermione's unpleasant look shifts into an amused one, and she giggles a little, "No, no. We broke up. That was a horrible idea from the start, to be honest. We were great friends, of course, but we made horrible lovers. What's the latest memory you remember, by the way? Is it just the, ah, thing that happened at Malfoy Manor? Or is it after?" Her face tightens a little, but otherwise she doesn't seem to mind bringing up her torture by… me…

No, Lestrange.

"I believe so? They're so jumbled and odd that I find it hard to judge which memories fit where. The only way I can tell is Draco being taller or smaller, as most of my memories seem to involve him," She admits, "Is he… doing well?"

"Well, he's actually a co-worker of mine." She rolls her eyes fondly, "Though we don't really work together. He's working in the time travel division, and I'm working on… another project. Though he really only joined the Department of Mysteries to prove Harry was, er, lying, he really got into it. I've even got him watching muggle movies and TV shows about time travel. He insists that he doesn't actually like them and it's just for research, but… Astoria told me how he keeps talking about making one of the rooms of the Manor into a 'muggle' room."

"Hmm… Really?" Narcissa asks, "Draco?"

"I know, right?" She laughs, "Sometimes we'll all go out together to the movie theater. Me, Harry, Ron, Ginny, Astoria and Draco, though I think Draco only tolerates all of us going together because it annoys Ron…" She looks slightly evil as she says this, "And to be honest, I love that part too. Ron keeps asking me if I'm… you know, dating him on the side, and I don't ever say no. Ron knows he can't actually curse Draco or anything, because as an Auror he has to hold himself to a higher standard, so he's stuck just making snide comments that Draco never takes the bait for."

"How very Slytherin of you, Hermione." Narcissa smirks unexpectedly, and I don't know who any of these people are, but honestly? That does sound like something Narcissa would do. Wait, there was something Hermione said earlier…

"Why would he proving Harry wrong?" I ask, confused. Wrong about what?

"Oh… uh. Well… I guess I can tell you?" She goes quiet right after, and they make it down three blocks before she starts speaking again, "I'm not trying to hide anything from right now, I'm just not sure of all the details myself. In fact, none of us are quite sure what he told us was true… Well, Luna believes him, but Luna would believe in just about anything." She gives an eye roll that's equal parts fond and exasperated, "It all starts with the Battle of Hogwarts-"

"There was a battle at Hogwarts?"

"So… yes and no." Not confusing at all, "There was supposed to be. We'd just gotten to Hogwarts, to search for a certain… item, and Voldemort found out. So we drove the Headmaster out of the school, who was a Voldemort puppet, and we were preparing for war. This is the part where things get confusing. In the history HE remembers, he remembers lots of people dying. Lots of them." She looks significantly at me, and I don't need to ask to know what she means by it, "But he found… something, that let him go back in time. And then this is the history I remember. As soon as we drive the Headmaster out… he leaves Hogwarts, all of the sudden, without any of us."

"Wait. What?" I ask, slightly confused. This is a very incomplete story.

"Yeah… we were freaking out, of course, because we'd thought he'd been kidnapped. An hour later, we see a group of centaurs coming to Hogwarts, with Grawp holding a bunch of stunned Death Eaters. And according to them, he just… killed Voldemort? Somehow?" She shakes her head, violently, "I'll be honest, he won't talk about what happened in the forest and it irritates me so much. SO. MUCH."

"Questions. I have… many questions. Who the bloody hell is Grawp?"

"Oh, er, Hagrid's giant half-brother."

"Oh." That… is completely not surprising at all, "Secondly… time travel? Really?"

"I have to assume that's what he did! Otherwise, what he did makes no bloody sense! Before he left, he told us to go to the Room of Requirement and search for Ravenclaw's lost Diadem. We did, and destroyed it… and that was all he said before he left."

"But really? I didn't know time worked like that." At least, that's what I know about Time Turners…

"You should listen to Draco sometime. He was a Death Eater, technically, but I don't think he ever wanted to cast an Unforgivable, or hurt anyone greatly, until AFTER the war. And he heard what Harry did. I've had to dissuade him from casting Imperio on him multiple times…" She blushes, "Only because I know he can break it. Veritasium, too; as an Auror, he knows how to check his drink for foreign substances."

"Okay. Fine." That… really bugs me, which I suppose is what Hermione feels, so I better stop asking about it before she gets too irritable, "Who the bloody hell is Voldemort? What kind of name is that?"

"You may know him better as Tom Riddle." Narcissa supplies, and I gasp; the man our father wanted us to meet the night we were… kidnapped…

Kidnapped? Were we? For some reason, I'm having doubts about that assumption.

"Wait, you've already met him?" Hermione questions.

"Not… at the time our memories end. We were to meet him that night." I frown, "Our father was oddly excited about that. Whoever it was, it made him… extremely excited. It didn't frighten me, but anything that makes our father happy was not going to be something good."

Narcissa snorts, "Don't forget it was BOTH of them. Mum getting excited was almost as bad."

"And… this was the man who inspired me to become a full blooded blood purist." I say, shaking. Some man inspired me that much?

"Honestly, I don't even know if you WERE." Hermione reasons, "That you actually believed in it. Especially now that I get to know you. I think it was just… love. You were in love with him."

"I fell in love with a man?" What does it say about me that I almost find the prospect of falling in love with some MAN worse than becoming a torture loving blood purist?

Right. Because I care more about myself then other people.

"I mean… I don't think you two had sex." She offers, "If that makes you feel any better. Actually, I don't think he ever had sex with anyone."

"That shouldn't make me feel any better." I sigh, "But honestly, it does."

"Pathetic lesbian." She sticks her tongue out at me, and I goggle. Who was this woman? Even if I believe I'm not the one who tortured her… How can she flirt with the person who grew up to torture her? Was she… into that? How… crazy. Who would ever… be into… that…?

* * *

For the record, the mystery is not what Harry did to travel in time. In fact, you can just imagine it! For some reason, I have it in my head that he found Kyubey in the Room of Requirement and now Harry goes around London in a skirt fighting witches. He's really annoyed they're called this and he argues with Kyubey constantly.


	4. Obscuro

"We're almost at the bridge intersection." She notes, "I wonder how they're blocking this… bridge…" As she turns the corner, she freezes. I peek out from behind our building, and…

A fucking dragon!? How the…? it was huge, at least 40 feet long. It was covered in dark, black scales and it's tail looked especially vicious, covered with bronze spikes that looked like they could pierce through anything. I notice Narcissa come into view of the dragon, and I instantly clap her mouth; she's always been scared of dragons, ever since she had a really bad experience with one from Gringotts when she was five. And despite her rapid aging, I can still see the fear in her eyes.

"Cissy, it's facing the other way. It doesn't notice us." I whisper into her ear, quietly but quickly, "We need to go up New Bridge Street, and quickly, but we can't panic. Got it? We will be safe. It's not paying attention to us. It doesn't know we're here. Got it? I'm not uncovering your mouth until you nod." Her eyes still looked panicked, but my quick words seem to break through. She nods jerkily, and I release her… but hold her hand anyway, to make sure she doesn't run away screaming.

"Hungarian Horntail…" Hermione whispers, but she doesn't look panicked or anything, so I merely tap her on the shoulder to get her to move. She turns to me, nods, and we walk, very quickly, right through to the next street. I can feel Cissy shaking, but she's not trying to go faster than us. Hermione is trying her best to scan the street with her wand while also making sure we get out of sight as soon as possible, but it's not really working.

"Tudor street." I point out the next left, and both of them nod. Once we get off New Bridge street, Cissy falls on the ground, breathing heavily. I get her to scoot over to a building to lean on, and she scoots backward, almost knocking her head into the stone of the building. Hermione sits to the right of her, and I make my way to the right of Hermione. We just stare at the Tesco's in front of us for a while, all three of us trying to calm ourselves down. Well...

"This is getting ridiculous. Incredibly ridiculous." Hermione is breathing heavily, and she looks more angry than scared, "Horntail? Dementors? That fucking potion? If the earthquake didn't happen..." Her angry spiel drops to a low mutter, low enough that I can barely understand anything she's saying. I do hear her saying Ministry a lot, though...

"Hey. Is everything alright?" I try to get her focused again, and she shakes her head viciously.

"Fuck no. This is all so… familiar." She says, unexpectedly, "Dementors, the Hungarian Horntail, the Potion… If I wasn't so sure that it wasn't either Harry or Ron, I would think it'd be Harry or Ron. This is ridiculous. The potion is the weirdest part too, because I don't know he told a lot of people about it. "

"Wait, you've had to DEAL with that dragon?" I point backwards towards the bridge, with some amount of incredulousness.

"Well, not me. Harry was in the Triwizard Tournament, and the first task was getting a golden egg from a dragon. He just happened to pick the worst of the bunch." She says wistfully.

"Triwizard Tournament, huh?" I say wistfully, "I wish I could've gone through it myself. Testing myself against the best that Europe has to offer…" Even in the unlikely event that I didn't win, I'd still be able to meet someone BETTER than me. It'd be a great learning experience, if nothing else.

"I think Harry might've felt the same way had he not been 14." She opines, "and had Voldemort's lackey not been trying to kill him…"

"Merlin, your school life wasn't easy, was it? Is it bad if I'm a little envious?"

"Not at all, as long as you don't blame him for hating the vast majority of it." She smirks as she stands up, "Well, ladies, I think we should move on. I assume the dragon will continue to guard that bridge, but I don't want to take that for granted." We both sit up and we follow her down the narrow street, closely watching for any traps or various creatures.

"So… if you're familiar with all of this stuff, what do you think comes next?" I ask, and it's not Hermione, but Narcissa who answers next.

"You don't think it'll be a giant chess board, do you?" Narcissa smirks, and Hermione groans.

"Heavens help us if there is." At that odd proclamation, she starts ticking things off with her fingers, "Devil's Snare, A three-headed dog… Uh, don't remember anything from the third year, unless they planted a whomping willow in front of the ministry or something… Sphinx, maybe? Blast Ended Screwts?"

"What the bloody hell is that last one?"

"Hagrid's attempt at, er, creating a new species." She grimaces, and I can't help but cringe at that. That oafish moron doing something so permanent like cross-breeding?

"I guess after the 4th year, we mostly faced opposition from the Death Eaters…"

"Those were Voldemort's followers, which… er, Bellatrix Lestrange was part of." I ask, as we turn down another street to get to the bigger Fleet Road, "Death Eaters sounds like a… well, I guess I sound a little hypocritical, but it's a completely stupid name."

"I agree, but Voldemort was always scared of death, so I guess he wanted… you all to eat his death? I don't know." She shakes her head, "I only understand Voldemort so much, you know? I understand his followers more than I understand him. He was able to offer them something they wanted if they followed him, and they did it. I don't really understand why he was so scared of death, or why he was so obsessed with blood purity despite being a half-blood. I don't even know if he believed that part, or just used that to attract his following." She frowns, "Well, at least Narcissa never joined."

"I might as well have." She admits shamefully, "Even if I never took the Dark Mark, I let them live in my home for a year. I supported my husband without shame and without hesitation, even when he was out torturing Muggles. I never did any of it myself, mostly because Voldemort was under the impression I was a mediocre witch, but I would have done it if he asked."

"You did it to survive, Narcissa. Most people don't blame you or Draco. As for Lucius, well, he is a... follower." Hermione says diplomatically, but I have a better word for it.

"He's a bitch, Cissy." I shake my head, "Whomever you are, you clearly know how irritating he is. Always acting like he was Merlin's gift to the Wizarding World, when in actuality he was an idiot who lucked into a betrothal for someone way out of his league. He never admitted he was wrong about ANYTHING, and his constant blood-purity shite is so fucking infuriating. Most of Slytherin believes in it, but he talks about it so much that even some of THOSE people find him intolerable."

"It's… odd. The person I started as, the one who was 14, wants to argue with you about that. The one I am now, the one who's… got memories of him as a grown man, agrees with you every step of the way." She does seem mightily conflicted.

"Well, you two have seperated." Hermione offers, "You haven't divorced, purely because it's inconvenient, but you're living with-"

"Andromeda." She finishes, eyes widening, "I remember now. We found a place together around June of 2000, living together with her daughter and…Him." She sneers, before retraining her face, "Er, her husband."

"Andi has a daughter?" I ask with interest, "Actually, if you're talking about Andromeda…"

"Well, I don't know her that well. It's mostly Harry that can tell you about her, as her grandson is his godson." She shrugs, "As far as I know, she seems to be okay. She wasn't doing very well after the loss of her husband, so that's why Narcissa went to live with them, but now she's doing better."

"Her husband? Do you mean Tonks?" I… admit to not liking the guy. Publically I don't like him due to his status as a Mudblood, but in actuality, he wouldn't be worthy of Andromeda even if he was the Purest of Purebloods. But as wishy-washy and boring as he was, at least he wasn't Lucius.

"Yes." Cissy glances at me as we finally make it onto Fleet Street, Hermione busy with her scanning spells, "I never liked him much either, but she was really broken up about it. She mostly spends her time looking after Teddy while Nymphadora and Remus work."

"Nymphadora?" I giggle, "Really?" How embarrassing can you be, Andi? Merlin, I'd probably hate Mum even more if she tried to hoist THAT name on me.

"We mostly call her Dora, or Tonks." Hermione looks slightly suspicious as we finally step onto the wide open street, "She's an Auror, and quite a senior one as well. Remus helps out at the Weasley's joke shop, if I recall."

"Some of the Weasley's own a business? Hmm."

"Hey, Fred and George are actually quite brilliant." She doesn't seem to appreciate my distaste for the Weasley's, but as long as the one who came up with the place wasn't her idiot ex, I can cool off it, "Really, they did a lot for the war effort, and they're extremely funny… even if I feel the need to throttle them after interacting with them for more than five minutes." Hermione definitely strikes me as someone who doesn't have a lot of time with those who don't take things seriously.

"I… shamefully admit that as well." Narcissa's face reddens, "I tag along with Andi sometimes, when she goes to the Weasley's hovel for their weekly dinner thing, and I… find those two to be… adequate." Well, coming from Narcissa that's actually high praise.

"It'll be our little secret, Narcissa." Hermione grins brightly and Narcissa can't help but smile softly as well.

"Wait, what do your two friends do? Harry and Ron, right?"

"Aurors. Ron mostly does work from the desk, because he can actually be brilliant… at very specific circumstances." She says with a little bite, "One of them including detective work. Harry works in the field more often, because his strengths lie in his extraordinary reflexes."

"Harry Potter is quite remarkable." Narcissa agrees, "To do what he did as a youngster, and survive, is quite extraordinary. Actually, Bella, even you would find it hard to do battle with…"

She stops talking, and she actually stops moving. She starts glancing at the various buildings dotting this street, and she does it rather quickly. Her eyes lock on to Hermione's, and she looks extremely worried.

"Wait. I think you're forgetting something." Narcissa says with a horrified look on her face, "Your list of adversaries to and your friends have faced. Your second year, you were petrified, right?"

"...Oh. Right." She runs her hand through her voluminous hair, looking slightly terrified, "Second year… Slytherin's Basilisk. I guess I don't remember it because-"

"Merlin's Beard, girl! A bleeding Basilisk!?" I want to scream at her for failing to warn us of this before now, but that won't help. So I grit my teeth and say, "Well, regardless, Basilisks are rare, right? Extremely so? There's no way there would be one here…"

"No way?" She says fearfully, "No, no, that's exactly what's coming up next. Merlin, why am I such an idiot? Obviously they'd put their next trap around here, and considering that this road leads directly to Charing Cross Road, and that this would be the most likely route for people to take..."

"Aren't you being a little paranoid?" I ask, though I still start scanning those very same buildings Narcissa has been scanning. If there was a giant snake somewhere on this street, where would it be…

"No, this is absolutely what's next." She seems very sure of herself, "We should get moving, just in case." We'd been standing still, so we start walking, but I think we're all stuck between wanting to make sure it doesn't detect us, and getting off this road as quick as possible.

"Why didn't you remember it before hand?" I ask, trying not to sound accusatory… I don't know that it worked very well.

"I was petrified, actually." She says with a sigh, "And I had zero memories of what happened after. I think it was nearly three months that I'd been petrified, and I was lucky I was so far ahead that I didn't miss all that much. Finch-Fletchley and Colin both missed significant amounts of schooling, and Colin was a muggleborn so he couldn't really do any of his work during the summer."

"And I doubt you actively think about it." Narcissa guesses, and Hermione nods.

"Exactly. I think it's inter-" She stops, and points ahead with a shaking hand, "That's got to be where it is. There's no way it would be further up, as this street is kind of the only place it could hide before we get to Strand, and I don't think it'd be that far. I doubt this is the last trap, and I doubt they'd have space for two more unless the Basilisk is right there."

The road she's pointing to is roughly five buildings away, and I can't hear anything. She's mostly been right about things so far, of course, so it's not like I'm going to argue, but…

"How do we deal with it? Go around?" Narcissa asks, and Hermione shakes her head.

"To be honest, as long as we're going into this with foreknowledge, it should be okay. I think it's a little like the Hungarian Horntail; it would be stationary at first until it sees us, so we have time to prepare."

"Prepare… how?"

"Obscuro!" She points her wand directly at us, and I can feel a magical blindfold cover my eyes. I try to get it off, futilely, as I know it's magically bound onto me. I feel someone's hands move the piece of cloth up, and I can see Hermione staring directly into my face… I blush and duck my head before the moment gets too heated, but I can hear Hermione giggle a little regardless. Why am I thinking like this when we're about to do battle with an extremely dangerous snake, again?

"Okay, this shouldn't be needed," She points the wand on herself and casts another, "But the stare of a Basilisk is deadly, and even seeing it through some sort of glass will result in petrification. So just in case…"

"Cover our eyes, got it." Narcissa nods, adjusting the cloth vertically as though she were wearing a pair of glasses.

"What are the other weaknesses?"

"They can move through pipes. Well, I guess that's not really relevant here, but that's how Slytherin's Basilisk moved through Hogwarts. Spiders don't like them, for a reason I've never been able to really understand. Even after talking to an Acromantula. There was something else… A rooster! The cry of a rooster is fatal!" She summarizes, and I point to a nearby car.

"Could you Transfigure that into a bird?"

She pouts, as though offended I needed to ask, "Avifors!" She successfully transfigures the car into a rooster, though for some reason it looks to be asleep… Well, Narcissa picks it up anyway and starts trying to shake it.

"Er, let's just get closer, right?" Hermione suggests, and we inch closer to the supposed site of this Basilisk. I was a little skeptical, but now that we get closer I can definitely hear an odd sound, the hissing of a beast that seems far too big to be hissing anything… Meanwhile, Narcissa was still trying to wake it up, and Hermione was trying to help as well.

"Why won't this thing wake up?" Narcissa whispers as we get two buildings away from the intersection, "It seems obstinate…"

"I don't know… Transfiguration was never my strong suit, to be honest, and honestly this wand only barely likes me." She whispers back, "It's breathing and everything, so I know it isn't dead, but I'm not quite sure why…"

"Er… Hermione, how sure are you that it won't attack us until we're in it's eye-sight?" I can hear it shuffling, almost, "Because I think…"

"Oh Merlin!" Hermione starts backpedalling down the road and we both follow her, and as soon as she lets us past her she starts casting her blasting spells towards the buildings, trying to slow the incoming Basilisk down. I can hear the hissing getting louder, and fear is driving us to run faster than we ever have before.

The buildings are tumbling down and down, and I can only imagine the devastation Hermione's leaving in our wake, but I can still hear the giant snake gaining ground on us. We can't keep running forever, because I can already feel the pain in my side worsening and it's not been 30 seconds!

"Through that gate!" Hermione commands, and since Narcissa is ahead of both of us, she wrenches open the wrought iron gate, and holds it open while we enter. Hermione points behind a few garbage bins, and despite my… utter lack of understanding of what the heck she's even trying to accomplish with this, we both hide behind each one.

"Sorry Narcissa!" She says suddenly, and casts the Transfiguration spell on… her, instead. The Narcissa rooster is awake, and I despite her new form, I can still see the familiar Narcissa glare in her eyes.

Who knew a rooster could look so haughty?

"Start crowing!" She urges as she casts blasting spells on the trees in this little alcove, and despite Cissy-crow looking like she would rather peck Hermione's eyes out, starts her crowing. I can still hear the Basilisk coming, but it seems to be getting softer and softer… by the time we can see it again, it's barely limping along. I don't even think it knows where we are… all of the sudden, the car crow starts crowing too, and the Basilisk lets out an otherworldly cry as it twists up onto its belly.

"Is it…" I whisper towards Hermione, who's peeking on the other side of the garbage bin, "dead?"

"I believe so, but it would be- OW!" She whines, and I look back at her to notice the Narcissa crow pecking at Hermione's legs, very violently. Almost drawing blood.

"You might want to fix Narcissa before she kills you." I offer wryly, and she gives me an unimpressed look before she whispers the counter-spell. As she stretches out her limbs, she… picks up the other crow, who seems to have gone back to sleep again, and… strangles it?

"C-Cissy?" I say, haltingly, as she's holding the rooster with a deathgrip, "Are you… okay?"

"Narcissa?" Hermione whispers, and Narcissa gives her a very unimpressed look.

"Why is it you chose me to transfigure, instead of Bella?" She asks, very coldly, "I hope it's not for any… untoward reasons."

"...I have no idea what you're talking about." Hermione is still staring at the rooster who is still holding onto life, but not for much longer, "You were… closest."

"I'm sure." As soon as the rooster stops struggling, she tosses it into the garbage bin viciously, and I guess my face looks slightly frightened, because she's giving me a comforting look.

"Bella? Did I… scare you?" She asks, incredulously.

"Not at all." I cross my arms and pout, and Narcissa just laughs.

"I forgot how… innocent, you were. How innocent we all were, before…" She stops and offers me her hand, "To think that I could scare you…"

All these references to who I turned out to be are extremely depressing. I never had much hope for the future. The Wizarding World would always be complacent, arrogant and unintelligent. I couldn't fix that by myself, even though my family is supposed to be 'Noble', which means next to nothing if you actually want to affect change. But… at least I thought I'D be okay. I'd be married to that idiot Lestrange, but we'd have no children, live apart. I'd be able to have mistresses, warm bodies to help me cope with my malaise. Maybe I couldn't change the world overnight, or at all, but at least I could make sure I wouldn't be drawn into it.

But now, I see that whoever married Rabastian Lestrange… she did! She bought into the whole fucking thing! She abandoned everything about me that made me stand out, only retaining some of her knowledge. But she threw away her wisdom at the drop of a hat. She made her own sister be AFRAID of her! My two sisters are the two most important people in my life! How… how could she? I hate her so much…

"Come on, Bella." Hermione's voice breaks into my thoughts, and she hands me a… a handerchief? Shite, was I crying? I hurriedly wipe my face with my robes, not wanting to seem incompetent, but Hermione just looks sad as she puts back the cloth.

"Sorry… we still have to get to Diagon Alley." I try to give her a reassuring smile, but my heart is not in it.

"Bella." Cissy is looking concerned too, "Please, don't worry. I think, once we get to Ollivander's… Well, Hermione can finally fill us in on what's going on. I am very much looking forward to getting the answers."

"I will be completely honest." She says, hesitantly, "Even if… well, even if that means you hate me for it."

Huh…

* * *

Now I wonder why Dumbledore, who, I believe knew about the Basilisk (idk it's been a while) didn't put a bunch of roosters around the school. Just doodlin all up in there, all the time, and if the rooster dies a nearby portrait could confer with Dumbledore that Ginny killed him!

Tsk tsk tsk. Dumbledore. bad boy.


	5. Wingardium Leviosa

"A troll? Really?" Hermione sounds offended, and I can't help but feel the same too. We just bested a Basilisk. Well, I didn't help as much, but how would they think a troll could ever stop us after that? It was just waiting for us once we turned onto Charing Cross Road, which took a while. We had to take some of the back roads after Hermione demolished all those buildings, and it was disturbingly quiet. I don't know what Narcissa or Hermione were thinking about, but I was definitely thinking about what she said about hating her. I have a hard time considering she could say anything that would make me hate her, but… I do have a vivid imagination.

A part of me wonders if I even truly want to know.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" She casts the levitation spell on the troll without much fuss and it decided to watch it's club be raised above the ground rather than attack the caster… Merlin, trolls were dumb. As soon as it got at a decent height, she cancelled the spell and the club hit it right on top of the head. As the troll came down and I stare at Hermione, who looks bored.

"Oh, that's how I dealt with it the first time. Harry and Ron tried to distract him, but really, trolls are fairly stupid." She shrugs, "This was in my first year, so I was rather scared at the time-"

"Ouch." I wince, "Why was there a troll in Hogwarts?"

"Voldemort." It seems like everything ties back to him, but she just stares at the twitching troll and sighs, "If the Basilisk is the worst thing we have to deal with, I have to wonder what they're thinking. All of these obstacles ARE conquerable."

"Without a wand, though?" Narcissa asks with a disgusted look on her face, though I think that's just because she was the one closest to the troll.

"Maybe not, but I found a wand." She twirls it in her hand, "Who's to say there wasn't an extra one in there?"

"Well, we should get going." I say to move us along, "Do you think there's going to be anything in Diagon Alley?"

"...no." She says slowly as she gingerly steps over the troll's fingers, "At least, I don't think so. The wall should be there, and it's not like you can get in there without a wand, so it should be safe. Hopefully."

"What about the Ministry?" I ask, "If I recall, we don't need magic to go in there. Theoretically, any muggle could just punch in the code for the visitor's entrance and enter." Obviously, Ministry staff would Obliviate them if they weren't supposed to be there, but still.

"There will be… something there." She says, before pointing up at the street, "There it is. Just being curious, Bella, but can you see it?"

"...Kind of." I frown, watching the familiar building fade in and out of view with alarming speed. Honestly, it's making me a little sick, especially knowing we have to get in there. What's affecting my magic so much?

"I can see it." Narcissa responds, and that makes me even more depressed. Something's up with the both of them, but we're so close to Diagon Alley that asking them questions seems a little impatient. I merely close my eyes and grab Hermione's hand.

…

It's very warm…

"Oh, okay." She says, and we make our way to Diagon Alley silently. Part of me wants to get closer to her, but what she said after the Basilisk still weighs on me. It takes a few minutes, especially as I'm closing my eyes, but eventually I hear the bell and I open my eyes. It's oddly… familiar.

"This place hasn't changed a bit, huh?" Narcissa agrees with my thoughts, "I used to think it disgusting and dingy, but now I just find it… comforting."

"Yeah."

Hermione slowly makes her way out to the back, and we follow. Just as we exit the pub, I see the stone wall collapsing and the alley definitely looks different, but it doesn't seem dangerous. Yet. Who knows what'll happen once we get further in…

"It looks fairly normal to me, and I think I was right about it not having any traps." Hermione says with a small amount of smugness, "I doubt they expected us to get through the wall. I'm not suggesting we go charging in-"

"Mostly because we're Slytherin and you're the one non-moronic Gryffindor?" Narcissa smirks, and Hermione… she clearly wants to argue the point, but she just nods. She knows.

"Right. Just to be safe, though, we should beeline towards Ollivanders." Though I still want to examine the alley to see what's changed, I admit that getting a wand takes the priority, so we start walking quickly to the back of the alley. Once we get there, and it looks just like it always did… Hermione sighs deeply, almost sinking into the ground with relief.

"Okay, okay… We finally made it. We're close, you two." She opens the door and we step in, "Please, try and find a wand that works for you two. I'm not sure how it'll all work, as this wand seems to be perfectly fine… While you're doing that, I can explain what's going on." We both split up, Narcissa scanning through the ones on the large wall, and I start searching through the ones underneath the window.

"First off… I'm an Unspeakable." Hermione's taken one of the chairs and is just rocking back and forth in it, "As I've told you. Once the war was over, I was… well, all three of us didn't get to go back to Hogwarts for our seventh year. We were a little busy fighting in the war at the time. All three of us had a job offer from the new Minister to work as Aurors. Both Harry and Ron instantly agreed, but I wanted to go back to finish my seventh year anyway. Mostly… I guess I just wanted to stop fighting."

"Understandable." Narcissa remarks, pulling out a few boxes and opening them at random, while I study the boxes intently.

"Well, once I got there, McGonagall gave me the Head Girl position." No surprises there, "And considering the war, I tried my best to make sure all of the Muggleborns who entered, including some 12 year olds that should've already gone through their first year, were doing alright. I know plenty of us had trouble in the first year, even if they hid that from everyone else. So I had a little club for the muggleborns, to make sure they kept up to speed."

"That sounds… no offense intended, of course… ghastly." I say, examining a wand made of Red Oak and Dragon Heartstring. I gave it a few flicks, but I felt nothing. All those 11 and 12 year olds? Merlin, I'd rather take my chance with that Hungarian Horntail.

"Well, it was tough. I don't deny that." Hermione laughs nostalgically, "I forgot how annoying I was at that age. Still, a lot of them were really grateful, and one of them in particular loved the club. He was a 12 year old Ravenclaw, and honestly… I think you'd like him, Bella. He was a natural scientist. Before learning about magic, he wanted to grow up to study diseases. But he asked so many questions about how X worked, or why would you need to use Y, or why the heck were we still using quills." She giggles, "He constantly gave the teachers conniptions, but I quite liked him. At one point, I remember telling him about Pensieves."

"Pensieves…" I've never used one myself, but I know my father has one. For as intricate as the magic was, and as impressive as it was, I always just found it a little too… specific.

"He asked a bunch of questions about it I couldn't answer, because I hadn't studied it personally, but… he did get me thinking about it." She sighs, "Poor McGonagall, I kept accidentally interrupting meetings in order to study the Hogwarts Pensieve. Eventually she just gave it to me to put in the Head Girl's room, and told me to bring it back at the end of the year. I learned some stuff from it. Not as much as I'd have liked, but enough to explain exactly how it worked. And that intricate study…"

"...Lead to the Unspeakables offering you a job." Narcissa finishes, holding a Walnut wand that looked extremely springy, "Which you took."

"I always thought I'd work to make Magical Law more friendly for non-human creatures, but the more I thought about it, and the more it bored me. I could understand all the Legalese and paperwork, but I found it extremely boring. I remember one day when a bunch of us were out in Hogsmede, complaining to Luna Lovegood about how boring it all was. She got inspired by it, apparently, and decided to try her hand at it." She shrugs, "She's better than I would've been. She's quite good at marrying the emotional with the logical, in a way I would find it hard to emulate."

"Wait, Lovegood?" That name seems familar to me, for some reason…

"He was that weird 1st year that got in trouble for trying to free some of the Thestrals." Narcissa reminds me, and Merlin that's right! One of them had almost gotten away before Hagrid was able to calm it down, and he got dinged 50 points, which lead to Slytherin winning the house cup that year. A few of the Slytherin seventh years actually got him thank you presents. Surreptitiously, of course, to make sure he wasn't targeted by Gryffindors or Ravenclaws any more than he already was.

"Sounds like Xeno." Hermione rolls her eyes, "Anyway, now that I was free… I accepted the offer at the end of the school year, and my first avenue of study was the very same thing that got me accepted into that office in the first place. But they had far better tools than what I was using, and the things I learned… well, shocked me. Greatly."

"What'd you learn?" Trying another wand, Redwood and Unicorn hair… I felt a little something, but barely. Like a twinge or something.

"The potential they all have is frightening. Whoever figured out the first one must've been one powerful Wizard or Witch, but… for some reason, I have no idea why, they must've died before researching it any further, or that research got lost throughout the ages… They're all filled with so much potential, and we use them for their most basest purpose. It's like… going to Hogwarts, only to learn about Potioneering."

I stop my search for a brief second, too interested in what she's saying to continue. Narcissa is fairly distracted as well, grabbing a wand she already tested.

"Their potential." She breathes in deeply, "You could live in one. If you cast certain spells, on both yourself and the Pensieve, you could theoretically live INSIDE YOUR MEMORIES. Fully."

"How the… bloody hell would that work?" Narcissa frowns at the wand she'd already tested, so she moves to get the ladder to get up to the higher levels.

That does sound extremely suspect.

"How would you… even do that? With your memories, in theory, being a finite thing." I pull out my next box slowly, not even noticing the wand wood, "Your memories only notice that which is directly around you. If you look out of a window, you will be able to see the ground outside, but at some point the range has to fail."

"True. Living in your memories like that would only be useful in certain instances." Hermione moves to steady the ladder so Narcissa can climb it, "I personally tested that, and I can attest that it's extremely limited… and extremely fucking mind-breaking. I could actually interact with my memories! I actually talked to my past self!" She shakes her head, "Not that I was actually talking to my past self, you understand. In the Pensieve, that would be impossible."

"Just what you thought your past self would be like." At her nod, "Which, for someone like you, is probably pretty intricate."

"Oh yeah. I actually used a time-turner in my third year, to take all the electives," Somehow that does not surprise me at all, "So I've always wondered what it would be like to talk to myself. For someone who isn't as concerned with potential breaks of time, it's probably pretty boring to talk to them."

"So you can live inside your memories… what else?" Narcissa starts handing down wands and Hermione just pools them next to the ladder.

"Actually, after I did that, I was curious to see if I could actually… break my memories. I don't know if you two have ever used one, but when you put a memory into the Pensieve, you technically 'lose' that memory for the time being. Even if you go in and see it, it can be surprising to you. So I tried my hardest to break a certain memory I had, that really embossed itself into my memories. It was when Professor McGonagall came to my house and told me I was a witch."

"Let me guess… you called her crazy." For as logical as she seems to be, there is no way she just accepted it. Even if she had those strange spurts of accidental magic, I bet she'd be more likely to say her mind was playing tricks on her, rather than going to the magic explanation.

"Hah. You know me so well already." She grins at me, and then turns back to help Narcissa off the ladder, "Well, that was true. Me, my parents, and McGonagall actually had a really in-depth conversation about the potential origins of magic, it's potential misuse… I love my parents, and I knew they were 'smart', but I didn't realize they were that smart. Dentists don't really come across as the smartest of doctors, I suppose."

"Teeth, Bella." Narcissa supplies as she begins opening the boxes, one by one.

"Anyway. That was the setting for my second experiment, and I was trying to see if I could literally change what I remembered. I asked McGonagall for her memory as a base, just in case I… really mess with my mind." Her face looks exceptionally grim, "So… I tried killing myself."

"What!?" I can't help but shout, and I notice Narcissa almost recoil at the statement.

"I know. I know. I was… perhaps, a little…" She pinches her fingers close together, "Reckless."

"That's more than a little reckless! That's bloody fucking insane!" Merlin, how can you even attempt that? What if you have a vivid memory of you DYING, when you were ELEVEN!? How fucking crazy can you get? What would happen? Wouldn't you… drive yourself mad?

"Well, luckily for me," She seemed surprised at my outburst, "Nothing like that happened. I tried a lot of things before that though. I stunned McGonagall before she entered the house and pretended I was her, I appeared in the middle of the explanation and freaked everyone out, I even stunned myself and surprised McGonagall with myself, aged 21. I guess killing myself seemed like the next option?" That made me feel a little better, but… What an idiotic thing to do! Even if it's in the pursuit of knowledge.

"That didn't bother you?" Narcissa asks, flicking the wand she'd just dropped.

"Well, I admit to having a nightmare about it after the fact… but not especially. Even though the changes stuck, I still remembered having the idea to kill myself inside that memory, so I knew it wasn't real. I absolutely, one hundred percent, knew it wasn't real." She shrugs, "I had an idea it'd be like that."

"Still, that… that's exceptionally dangerous!" I flick the wand I was holding, and I actually get a single spark in response. That's more than I've gotten so far, so I should keep that one for safe keeping, but I dunno if that was because the wand (Pine and Phoenix Feather) or because Hermione got me angry. Merlin, she almost ruined her mind permanently! For someone as incredible as her to ruin her mind would be such a waste! Even if she had a theory that it would be fine…

"...Sorry." Hermione apologetic eyes catch my own for a brief second and I can feel… something pass between us, "So, knowing that, I had a few options for trials I could perform next. I didn't want to try the one I'd just tried with someone who didn't know it wasn't real, because… well, that just sounds dangerous," YES, YES IT IS, "So I actually tried my next avenue. Which was… stringing memories together."

"How so?" Narcissa seems to be studying a wand of Hazel, and I can tell it seems to be responding to her.

"Well, firstly… Harry and Ginny were moving into their new house, which I'd never been to. It had two stories and an attic, so I made sure I never even glanced at the attic while we helped move them in. I went inside my Pensieve, into that memory, and found that when I opened the door to the attic, there was nothing there. So the next time I came over, I made a point to fully examine the entire house, including the attic. I extracted the first memory, and I opened the door to the attic again… only to be able to be up there this time. Of course, this wasn't… perfect. Occasionally Ginny or Harry or Ron would go up the ladder, but they'd disappear as soon as they entered the place. Considering I really had no idea what they were going up there for, it made perfect sense."

"So you could… live in your memories, actually, if you stuck to places outside of that specific memory. Say, you lived in a memory of Hogwarts, but never went to Hagrid's hut. You could stay inside the hut, alone, without running into anyone." I surmise, and she nods excitedly.

"Exactly. Funnily enough, when I brought Harry into the memory with me… he couldn't see it either. Which makes sense. It's MY memory, after all. Harry living inside my memory doesn't mean his own memories of what happened in that attic add to my own. That would be silly."

"What was the next experiment?" Despite my search for a wand being important, I was just focusing on what Hermione was saying. She had a certain air about her when discussing her research, and despite my surface level attraction to her at first… Merlin, her amazing research just made me even more attracted to her, despite her… fatalistic approach.

"Well. At that point, I was a little curious at how it all worked. And something important occurred to me. Could other people do the same sorts of experiments that I was doing? Draco started a few months after me, and before he officially started… I asked him to try the same sorts of things I did. Do you think he could?"

Hmm, thinking about it… There has to be some way of protecting your memories in the Pensieve, so I shook my head no, exactly at the moment Narcissa nodded her head.

"Bella was right. He couldn't do it. In fact, he couldn't put any memories in at all. Because he hadn't started yet. Officially, anyway. I had him use the visitor's badge. And he couldn't. Because… because… he wasn't tied to the place yet. And it was then that I found out something very interesting… Only the 'owner' of a Pensieve can use it."

"But… you were doing experiments on the one at Hogwarts-"

"Because that wasn't tied to any one headmaster." Hermione responds immediately to Narcissa's remark, "It was tied to the school. Anyone who was, or should've been, a student at Hogwarts at the time of use could've used it. Staff too, of course. So Harry used it at the battle… well, he had before." She frowns a little, "Anyway. I went back to the school just to check on my theory, and it turns out I couldn't use it either. So in essence, I could use it at the age I was then because I was a student, but me at 22? No. I could have, however, if I was a teacher."

"And Draco couldn't use the one registered to the Unspeakables because he wasn't yet an Unspeakable." Narcissa nods understandingly, "Why does that matter, though?"

"Well, that led me down another avenue. What could the 'owner' of a Pensieve do? Those who weren't 'registered' as the owner could only view memories, and interestingly enough, they could only view memories that weren't locked. A spell I… well, I assume it was invented at one point and then forgotten, but I invented, or re-invented, a spell to lock memories. So I tested it again, with Harry and Draco. I showed them a memory that Harry knew but Draco didn't; me being attacked by a troll and then being saved by Harry and Ron. Draco was able to see it, but… Harry couldn't. He told me after the fact that it was like being stuck in a black void."

"Wait, where were the teachers?" Merlin, it's a wonder those three survived at all.

"Taking everyone else to safety. Come on, you know Gryffindors." She looks at me significantly, and I just roll my eyes. It's somewhat comforting to know Gryffindors haven't changed that much.

"Anyway. As soon as I learned the thing about the owner, I wanted to experiment on it. So I expensed another one, to be registered in my name. Or I tried to, anyway. Minister Shacklebolt dressed me down pretty harshly…"

"A Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic? Odd." They were definitely pure blood, but a much lower tier than the Blacks, Potters. Even the Prewett family was seen as higher. I always wondered if that was because of their skin color, because there was a Shacklebolt 3 years ahead of me, and despite being a Gryffindor, he was always pretty fair as a Prefect.

"So I had Harry buy me one." She says, slightly guiltily, "I felt bad for asking, but honestly, he throws money around like it's nothing if one of his friends needs something. So I got my own Pensieve, registered strictly to me. I did some of the same tests, and they all worked the same, so I gave it to Harry, and just as I expected, I couldn't do any of the same experiments I'd just done on the thing."

"So he kept the Pensieve you bought with his money?" I ask, and she nods.

"I didn't have any use for it anymore, but he might. That's what I thought, anyway. By that point, Minister Shacklebolt knew of my research. Obviously. And it was then that he asked me to explain everything that I'd found. It took a few hours, because he wanted to be sure he could understand everything… and then he asked me one single question." She licks her lips, which seem to have gone dry with all of the talking she was doing.

Or was it… anxiety?

"What was it he asked of you, Hermione?" Narcissa asks, holding Hermione's shoulder in a comforting motion.

"He asked… if I could… make the pensieve into a p-prison." She stutters out.

Oh. A prison.

A prison…

A… prison...

"We're… inside, a prison." I clarify, and Hermione nods. Narcissa… keeps a hold of Hermione, though I'm unsure if she's trying to comfort her or just trying not to collapse from shock.

* * *

PRISON


	6. Crucio

"And… initially, I was against it, but as he explained it, it did sound understandable." She winces slightly, "By that time, he was dealing with a lack of Aurors. You see, during the war, the Dementors joined Voldemort. When they lost, they initially tried to go back to the prison, but… Kingsley didn't agree with that sentiment. Not only because they were part of Voldemort's army, but because it was… extremely cruel." She stares at me, knowingly, and I get what she's insinuating.

Oh.

"I was… there, at Azkaban. How…"

"14 years." Narcissa says, with a degree of affected coolness.

Oh. Huh.

"I… despite the fact that I was tortured by Lestrange. Despite the fact that many people died as a direct result of Death Eaters… I couldn't stand for you to be tortured like you were. Regardless of what you've done. I've talked to Lucius about this, actually, and he up and told me he'd rather have died than stayed at Azkaban for a year, let alone 14. Sirius was not right after his stay, despite the fact that he knew he was innocent and he was an unregistered Animagus..."

"Sirius? Do you mean… my Sirius?" At Hermione's interested look I explain, "I… I have a love-hate relationship with him. I find him extremely annoying, but he's also fantastic at pushing our family's buttons, and he's great at getting out of it."

"Yeah. That Sirius." She says sadly, and… my next question stops at my throat. "He spoke of it like it was hell, and I don't know how anyone could stay there for a month and not go insane, let alone… 14 years. So at the end of the war, it was the Aurors who manned Azkaban, but they were dangerously understaffed. They offered positions to many people who were, frankly, unqualified. Even Harry and Ron admit that they shouldn't have gotten in as quickly as they did. They learned, of course, but…"

"With that many prisoners, a prison breakout was only a matter of time." Narcissa seems to repeat from memory… and she sinks down, her legs fanned out haphazardly.

"Right. So we were working against the clock in many ways…" She blinks, "And I agreed to put my Pensieve Project to use for a new prison, eventually. It took Kingsley a while to wear me down. So I started work on it with the head of the MLE, Aurors, the Minister himself. A prison of the mind, instead of regular prison. Because of that, we moved the prison space from an isolated spot out in the North Sea into somewhere closer. Much closer. An unused space near the Ministry, actually."

"Oh. That close?" I say, the ramifications of what she was saying finally hitting me… "Wouldn't you be scared of potential breakouts, in that case?"

"Technically, it's not connected to the Ministry at all. It's actually protected by a foot of bedrock in-between. I think it was originally set to be an expansion to the Ministry back in the 1800's, but that plan got put on hold. The only way in or out is apparition, which requires a wand that is registered by the Ministry, or Floo, which requires a password. Of course, that password system changes so often that it's far easier to just Apparate."

"Oh. And… how was it made. This… prison of the mind." I say, holding onto the new Pine wand so tightly my hands are shaking.

"The prison? Well. In all honesty, it took many months of walking, recording, and… breaking and entering." She says with eyes blazing, "I spent hours walking up and down London, entering people's houses or buildings in an invisibility cloak and fully examining the space. I felt bad enough about this as is, but it made me even angrier to know I couldn't do the same in obviously magical areas."

"You… didn't want to give people opportunities to get wands, I suppose." I answer from my spot on the floor, laying on my side and staring at the carpeted ground. Just the thought of this place not being real, this place being a prison...

"Which was ridiculous, I've told them that. This is why you can't actually go to certain places, in here. Certainly not a lot of Knockturn Alley, or Gringotts. Luckily enough I was able to get a wand from my friend Dean's place… I don't think they knew about that, though." She's getting angrier and angrier, "Once I felt like we'd gotten enough memories, I started to experiment once again. This time, editing memories."

"Wait. Do you not have memories of going certain places in here?" Narcissa asks, scooting back against the wall, "I'm sure you've gone to certain places only once…"

"You're right." She shakes her head angrily, "Well, by the time I'd fully recorded this area of London, and by the time I'd started my new experiments, factions had been formed, and plenty of them had ideas about using this place in ways I didn't approve of. The debate raged on, long and hard, for weeks."

"What was this debate?" I ask, purely to keep the story going. I needed to hear everything.

"What the point of the prison would be!" She slams her fist against the wall Narcissa was leaning on, causing some of the wands to spark off, "You see… It was my entire goal, for this place to be about rehabilitation. I accepted this mission from Kingsley to do exactly that. The point of Azkaban was retribution… and once people served their sentence, we just toss them out without any attempt to re-integrate them into society! They were traumatized by the Dementors, and then the Aurors… I'd heard from Harry that some of the Aurors guarding the prison openly bragged about atrocities that they'd committed against Death Eaters."

Neither me nor Narcissa can speak, now. Hermione's fiery dialogue is freezing us in our places, on the floor.

"Those same Aurors were fighting my vision for the prison. Some of the MLE people as well. They hated my proposal for this place. Pretty much all of them. They felt that, since they were the law, they should have more say over it then I do. I never got the full story of what they wanted, which I think was the point. Once I'd got done with my research, they were insistent that they be in control of this place, and not me, a lowly researcher." Her eye twitches, "Crock of shite."

"But what about Minister Shacklebolt?" Narcissa asks quietly.

"He… He was listening to them. They never told him what they wanted to do, I think. They may have told him that they were going to follow my plan to the letter, and that I would just be happier back in the Department of Mysteries."

"Which… would have been technically true." I answer, and she nods.

"Of course I would be, but… I couldn't let them take this place and use it for evil." She frowns, "Unfortunately, I couldn't hold out forever. I had very few friends in this project, as the Aurors they picked to directly work with me weren't ones who would be… amenable to my ideas. Sure, I complained to Harry and Ron about this, but they were thought of as too low level to handle a project of this magnitude. So… I was betrayed."

"Betrayed?"

"One day, when I tried Apparating into the prison, I was blocked. I tried again, and again, and it didn't work. So I went to the Ministry instead, and there sat Shacklebolt." Her tone is even, but her face betrays her horrible anger, "He told me that I didn't need to help anymore. That the Aurors understood this place, and that I could go back to my proper place. I raged. I raged so hard, but he merely said that the Aurors and MLE would do a fine job with this place. A bunch of… fucking bullshit!"

"Hermione…" I say, as she grabs a bunch of the wands Narcissa had been testing out at once, "Can you…"

"I worked SO hard on this project! SO HARD! I risked my life for this place, I spent months doing things I would rather not have done!" She's still shaking those wands, and Narcissa crawls over to me for safety, "All to be told that I wasn't the LAW, and that I should go back to my fucking place! I don't fucking know who it was that ultimately told Shacklebolt to take me off the project, but… I… I fucking want to strangle them. I want to burn them… I want them to be stuck here, to be killed by a fake Basilisk, or fake Dementor! MERLIN, what would've happened if we got Kissed!?"

"Hermione." I say, shifting onto my back and tilting my head to look at her raging face, "Hermione… do I really deserve rehabilitation?"

"That's… that's the point." She stares down at my guilty face and softens slightly, "My whole point. My plan for rehabilitation, was to remove the memories of you serving Lord Voldemort. To work with you, work with all of you, to help you deal with the memories you would soon be regaining. That when you got those memories, you could… remember, yes, but distance yourself from them. The ideal would be that you would have all of London to work together, to learn to be productive members of society again…"

"But instead… they're more interested in punishing you. I don't think they know, about… the memories." She sits down and starts rubbing my face gently, "They don't know about you, Bellatrix Black. They don't know the people they're punishing are innocent. Innocent children, in some cases. They don't know that you would be as aghast at the things Bellatrix Lestrange did as they are… They don't know that you're nothing more than a cocky, 18 year old. Nothing more than… a pathetic lesbian." She smiles beautifully at me, and I… I return it. The best I can.

"Do you really believe that, Hermione?" Narcissa is also leaning over me, "Even though she… even though Bellatrix Lestrange was a horrible monster?"

"Tom Riddle had ways of converting good people to horrible monsters." She sighs, and her hands stop moving, resting on my cheek, "You two aren't the first ones I found. Not at all. I visited many of them… Even though many of them were terrible before becoming Death Eaters, they were all redeemable. Every single one. At most, they were idiotic purebloods who had no idea how the world works. We could've worked with them. But instead… they rounded up every single person with a Dark Mark they could, even if they were found innocent, and stuck them in here."

"Wait… not…"

"No. Draco isn't an idiot, and when I was booted from the project, he immediately sensed that they might come for him. So before that happened, he decided to hide out with Harry and Ginny, in their attic." She reassures, despite her sadness and anger, "He's been complaining incessantly, but I think he kinda likes it."

"Snape?" She asks, and Hermione shakes her head.

"Too public. He's not the headmaster anymore, but he is the potions' teacher for Hogwarts. You know… did you know Fenrir Greyback is here? Do you know how old he was, when he was bitten?" When we shake our heads, her face tightens, "8. There's an 8 year old, lost, alone in London. I thought about taking him, but I needed someone… competent." She says shamefully, but… I can't help but agree.

"Merlin…" I sit up, gingerly, grabbing at my new wand that I seem to have dropped at some point.

"Narcissa… I assume you're here because they couldn't get Draco. Or you were with your husband when they caught him, and they took you to keep you from talking." She explains, "By the way… how long?"

"How long what?"

"Oh… the numbers, Cissy." She nods, pulling her robes to reveal the numbers… which have changed. Now it's 112/120.

"That long, huh…"

"Wait. If they took this place from you and you hadn't seen any of the additions they'd made, how did you get here?" I'm not suspicious or anything, but it does seem a little odd.

"Oh… I disguised myself as Draco!" She says brightly, most of her anger gone, "And then just walked around Diagon Alley, loudly proclaiming how good it was to be free and not in any sort of prison."

Narcissa grins brightly, "I bet he didn't like that."

"Not at all!"

"So… what now?" I say as I stagger to my feet, "Where do we go now? The ministry, or this new prison?"

"Ministry. Not only is that the exit point for the Pensieve, but there's one last thing I have to do." She nods seriously as she also stands up.

"What's that?" I ask, but she just leaves the shop without looking back. I glance at Narcissa, who looks just as confused as I am.

Well, I guess we'll see…

"And here we are." She says, pointing at the visitor entrance.

We made our way here very quickly. There didn't seem to be any traps on the way to the Ministry, which… knowing what might be waiting for us, didn't seem that strange. Mostly, me and Narcissa were practicing with the wands we'd acquired. Narcissa was doing fine, and even casting spells I was sure she didn't know previously. Probably a factor of her memories coming back, which… is it because she doesn't have this 'Dark Mark' thing?

As for me… I couldn't. I was getting very little other than sparks. I'd cast a single Wingardium Leviosa that levitated a rock a foot off the ground, but that was it. Hermione kept saying that I just didn't believe in myself enough, but after all that I'd heard, how could I? Did I even deserve to leave? According to what she said, the number on my leg signified how many hours I had left in the simulation. Narcissa had 120 hours, which was merely five days.

Me? I had 100 years.

Even if I was old as I see myself now, I would be 118 years old when I finally left. Bellatrix Lestrange was a monster… that… I don't think I should let escape. Hermione just seems too incensed from her research being stolen to realize this, and from what she said about the House Elves, and her Magical Creature advocacy, I think she's just too nice of a person. She's probably one of those people that will give you a chance, and then another chance, and another… All the while, someone who isn't as good will just exploit that day after day. Someone like...

"Yeah, your bodies are all outside." She's explaining the intricacies to Narcissa as we all crowd into the phone box, "You're under an IV, though, so you should be fine when you leave. Especially since it hasn't actually been all that long since you entered. They were waiting for 'Draco', after all, and since he was the last one for their little test group..."

"They were free to put us all in here." I fill in, "Though I'm not sure why Narcissa is still here, in that case."

"For all I know, it could simply be because she allowed the Death Eaters to live in Malfoy Manor without doing a thing to stop them." Hermione answers as she punches in the code, "Which is ridiculous, considering how many people worked at the Ministry despite…"

"What is your business here at the Ministry of Magic?" The woman's voice interrupts.

"Er… escape?" Hermione shrugs, and out pops three buttons: One for Narcissa Malfoy labeled 'Prison Break', one for Hermione Granger also labeled that, and one for…

Bellatrix Lestrange. 'Prison Break'.

"Shite. Don't bother worrying about that, Bella." She rubs my head gingerly and I grudgingly put it on. Her eyes look supremely sympathetic, but… I don't deserve it. I don't know why she's so insistent on this fact... Listening to the lift slowly descend, I worry about what we'll find.

"Where to first?" Narcissa asks as we leave the lift, staring at the strangely empty Atrium. I've been here a few times, though it's always been buzzing. This, more than anything else, fills me with dread.

"Department of Mysteries." She says and though I'm not quite sure why the exit would be there, I shrug and follow her to the next lift. Narcissa starts to follow as well, also looking suspicious. As we go down, I can feel Hermione's hand hover over to mine… does she want to hold hands? I feel like she's been flirting with me all throughout this situation, but… Does she…

No, no, that's ridiculous. She's trying to keep me from getting too frightened. You're in your 50's, she's in her 20's… Ridiculous. Stop.

We enter the Department and I can't help but be amazed at the foreboding atmosphere. What a place… She takes us into a black door, which leads us to a strange circular room with a high ceiling.

"Room of Prophecies." She announces, and the room spins and spins until it suddenly stops. Merlin, does she deal with that every day? Wait… why are we going into the Room of Prophecies?

For some reason, I expected a large, massive room with rows upon rows of prophecies hidden within. Certainly not… this. It's barely bigger than Ollivanders was, and there's only a few shelves, each with a few strange orbs inside. Each are labeled with… names…

"Hermione. Are these…" I fearfully ask as I try to back into the spinning entrance room again, but the door is closed, so I just bump my head.

"Your memories? Yes." She reaches out and grabs one from the nearest shelf, "Narcissa, here. I don't know how much you're missing, but this will fill you in." She takes it from Hermione, and she suddenly staggers forward, almost looking like she was going to collapse.

"I was bait, at first." She says, rubbing her head gingerly, "For Draco. But when they found 'Draco', well, someone argued that I should be here anyway. I believe he said… I may not have the Dark Mark, but that doesn't mean I wasn't part of His circle. The one thing that worries me, however, was how… easy it was. For them to break into our house."

"Easy? How so?" Hermione echoes.

"Well, I was kidnapped a mere 10 minutes after Andromeda took Teddy out for a Quidditch match. That was odd in and of itself, but… they broke in so easily. I was worried about people invading our home who had a problem with me, so I hired some of the best Ward creators in the world. And yet… It was so simple. They apparated straight in, as I was reading a book, and Stunned me pretty much immediately. I was able to catch a glimpse of their face, but I had no idea who they were. They were almost… too generic."

"Hmm, that may be the jinx that hides your identity." She murmurs, "Why they'd they'd want to hide from you, I have no idea." She shakes her head, "Not especially important. It wasn't really your memories that brought you here, Narcissa, but… those of Bellatrix Lestrange."

"What are you saying?" I ask, still frightened that she plans to give me the orb… but she just laughs at my horrified look.

"Bellatrix Black. Have you ever been in trouble with the Ministry?"

"...Bellatrix Lest-"

"No, I'm asking about YOU. The You who is talking with me, here, right now." She interrupts and pokes me straight into the chest, "Have you done anything that would trouble the Ministry?"

"I… no, I suppose not." I've been in trouble in Hogwarts plenty of times, but nothing that would trouble the Ministry.

"Nothing? Not even an innocent Breach of Security?" I shake my head, "So, doesn't that mean you're innocent?"

"Where are you going with this?" I ask, purely to fill the silence. I knew exactly what she was insinuating, and I didn't like it.

"Bellatrix Black, you've done nothing wrong." She says softly, staring into my eyes, "In fact, I find you… incredibly interesting. You were ahead of your time. I might even argue that you're ahead of THIS time."

"Are you kidding?" I ask incredulously, "I've tortured you, for Merlin-"

"No. Haven't we gone over this?" She pulls up her sleeve and shows me the horrid scar, "You didn't do this to me. You were so horrified… Bellatrix, I contacted you because I thought that by showing the people of the outside world that anyone, even someone like you, could be saved, that meant anyone could. And me, particularly, rescuing you… well."

"Do you intend… to break it?" Narcissa asks, her eyes alight with… longing.

"I do." She nods and turns around, "I intend to kill Bellatrix Lestrange, right here and right now. Bellatrix Black will be free, and will be considered innocent."

"You… You… how can you do that?" I say despondent, "Is that even legal?"

"I… I brushed up on the laws, before coming here. Well, I tried to. Nothing really applies to this situation." She admits, "But there have been some instances in history where something similar has happened, and they were considered innocent of anything they had done in the past."

"She would be free? Truly?" Narcissa says excitedly, "The Ministry would not be able to hold anything she's done against her?"

"I would guess not. Unlike an Obliviate, there will be no way for Bella to get those memories back. Especially after what's happened in here." Hermione bends down to pick up one of the misty orbs from the shelf, "You would be free, Bella. Don't you want that?"

Of… Of course. Of COURSE I want that. But how can… how can I just walk free? From what the evidence I've seen on Hermione, the evidence I've heard from Narcissa… I have done some truly horrible things. I doubt they've even mentioned half of my crimes to society. And now I would just be considered 'free'? After doing that?

"I… I can't. Surely there's a better way." I say quickly as she holds up the orb, "This can't be that easy…"

"You want it to be HARDER?" She says with no small amount of sarcasm, "Why? What do you want to happen? Do you want me to give you this? Do you truly want Bellatrix Lestrange to live again?" She starts throwing the orb gently in front of her, as though she means to throw it, and I shake my head fervently.

"No, no, of course not! Merlin, she sounds like the worst monster out there. But… There needs to be some sort of restitution, or something!"

"So, what, do you want to be in prison?" She asks rhetorically, "I wasn't aware you were into that, Bella, but there are ways you can do that without ACTUALLY being in prison."

"T-That's not what I mean!" My face burns as I think of what she's insinuating, "What about all the people I-"

"STOP." She growls, "No, I don't want to hear another word from you. I wasn't expecting this much blowback. Do you think I'm just doing this for you? Don't you think I want to have my final revenge against the bitch who carved Mudblood into my arm?" She raises the orb again, "I was all set to turn the other cheek. I really was, no matter how much Ron or Harry thought I was being a little too… sanctimonious. But now that I've met you? Now that I've met her first victim? How can I not put an end to her before she hurts anyone else?"

"Bella… I understand how you feel." Narcissa moves closer to me, and gives me a comforting smile, "Please, I really do. What she wants to do, right now, is one thing. We can discuss what happens after Lestrange is dead, later."

"Hmm… Now that I think about it…" Hermione's smile is more than a little chilling, "I think simply smashing it would be a little boring." She kneels to the ground, places it behind her and backs up to where we're standing.

"What do you plan to do, Hermione?" Cissy asks with interest.

"CRUCIO!" She bellows, and the orb containing all m- all of her memories, just shatters. I was a little worried that the mist would find me or something, but it simply floated away, through the ceiling. Hermione… despite casting the Torture Curse, looks extremely happy.

"And here lies Bellatrix Lestrange, a horrible, ruthless bitch who deserved nothing more than death." She sighs with contentment, "now, I can finally be free of her horrible influence, and more importantly… you can be free. Now, I know going into a 50 year old body is a little depressing, and there's probably some intense work that needs to be don-"

"If you think that alone will make me 'free'... You're a little naive." I murmur, still staring at the shattered memories, "I may not have any of her memories, but I sincerely doubt her influence is gone."

"I can work with that. You vastly underestimate the Wizarding World… or Overestimate, in a way." She speculates, "I can finally use my vast popularity for something good, again. You won't see the inside of a prison ever again, if I have any say about it."

"Cissy? Do you seriously think I can just be free, like she says?" I ask her, trying to appeal to her rational side, but she looks far too happy to even consider the negatives, "That I can just integrate right back into society, like THAT?"

"Voldemort… he tore us apart. Ever since you were arrested for the first time… Ever since Andromeda told us about Tonks… Ever since we met with Tom Riddle for the first time, I've wanted us to be back together again. Despite everything she did to her, despite the horrors Bellatrix Lestrange committed, she honestly wishes that all three of us could come together, and be the sisters we used to be. To be the sisters who stood together, and who loved each other. Andromeda's even confessed to me that she… She…" Narcissa's face reddens, "She got drunk and pissed right over Voldemort's grave."

"No, really?" Hermione giggles, "How did she get there?"

"Harry took her. I was rather impressed he never told anyone, actually." Narcissa coughs, "I cannot imagine Draco could hold a secret like that for very long."

Despite… despite my own feelings, despite the fact that I feel like I don't deserve it, these two will move Heaven and Earth to protect me. No matter how much I argue that I should pay for my crimes, they won't listen to me.

Maybe they're right. Maybe wallowing in despair because of choices made by someone… who, theoretically, wasn't actually me. At the point my memories cut off, she was merely a possibility. One that ended up existing, but a possibility. It's an odd, queer, scenario, but logically… Even if I do feel guilty, I shouldn't ask to be put in prison for it. I should work. I should help society, help those whom I've hurt. Sitting in prison would do nothing for anyone… And maybe that's the point Hermione was trying to make. That retribution, vengeance, revenge… what is it worth, in the end? A satisfied feeling? You still ruin a person's life, no matter how bad they were. If you can successfully rehabilitate someone, that will always be better than retribution.

But maybe I'm just trying to give myself an out…

No matter, we still have one more thing to do.

"Well, I think… I think we should go. We need to… we need to leave." I say quietly, and the grins I get back fill me with…

with...

* * *

R.I.P. Bellatrix Lestrange


End file.
